Taking the Fifth » Blog Archive » UPDATE: CORRUPT JUDGES CONVICTED FOR INCARCERATING JUVENILES IN EXCHANGE FOR KICKBACKS

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UPDATE: CORRUPT JUDGES CONVICTED FOR INCARCERATING JUVENILES IN EXCHANGE FOR KICKBACKS

Posted on July 29th, 2009 zshapiro No comments

In February we reported about two juvenile judges who benefited financially from incarcerating juveniles. Former Luzerne County (Wilkes Barre) Court of Common Plea Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan received kickbacks from a private jail in exchange for their help in getting the private jail the contract for incarcerating juveniles.

The case is not over. In fact they have not been sentenced yet thought they have signed plea agreements requiring them to spend 87 months each in prison.

Recently the Pennsylvania Supreme Court expunged the records of the 6500 juveniles who appeared before Ciavarella. But in expunging the records the court ordered that all copies of the files be destroyed. Four hundred of the juveniles have filed suit against Ciavarella and if the files are destroyed the juveniles will be unable to obtain damages for their unjust sentences and incarceration. Eventually the Supreme Court agreed to prevent the destruction of the 400 files of the juveniles who have filed suit but this will not help the other 6100 juveniles that appeared before Ciavarella in a potential class action suit.
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Judges, Juvenile Court Luzerne County Pennsylvania, Mark Ciavarella, Michael Conahan Leave a Reply

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