Former Lucerne County, Pennsylvania juvenile court judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan were convicted last year for receiving over a million dollars in bribes from developers of private prisons for sending juveniles to their facilities.

Since the scandal came to light the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has reversed the convictions of 2,251 juveniles sentenced by Ciavarella and Conahan. Part of the Lucerne County system under Ciavarella and Conahan was that the juveniles were routinely denied the right of counsel. As a result not only were the judges allowed to ride roughshod over the juvenile’s rights but there was no one present in the courtroom to challenge the judges or to complain to the authorities. A new law that takes effect this month requires that counsel be appointed in most cases, But the state left it up to the local government to find money to hire the attorneys and many local governments, including Lucerne County, are having trouble finding the money in these economic times.

Another new law prevents judges from shackling juveniles in the courtroom. This demeaning act treated juveniles as criminals and it was a favorite activity of Cavarella.

Another Pennsylvania judge has been charged with bribery. ¹ Judge Ross Cioppa of Bradford Hills has been charged with bribery for attempting to exchange favorable decision in landlord tenant matters to two women in exchange for sex. In addition to bribery the 70 year old judges is also charged with indecent assault and official oppression.

In one matter he is alleged to have asked a female litigant, facing eviction to massage his genitals. When she refused he obtained her approval to take pictures of her in exchange for a favorable decision. In the second case, he is alleged to have made sexual advances towards a tenant in litigation with her landlord. When she refused he asked her out on a date and gave her his phone number. When she did not call him he ruled against her.

Cioppa has been placed on paid leave pending the resolution of the criminal case. ²

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said “This is dealing with the integrity of the justice system, The victims are some of the most vulnerable people in the community.”
Zappala will not have to look far for witnesses. At least two members of his staff made complaints about Cioppa. Former Assistant District Attorney Laurel Brandstetter claims that Cioppa once blocked the door to his office as she was leaving and said that she was not leaving the office until she agreed to go out to dinner with him. He eventually relented and allowed her to leave. While such conduct might not be criminal it certainly violates the judge’s code of ethics. Canon 1 Of the Pennsylvania Code of Judicial Ethics states judges should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary. Canon 2 states judges should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all their activities. These canons either taken individually or in combination certainly prohibit a judge from dating an attorney who appears before the judge.

While Cioppa is not to be prejudged certainly either attempting to get sexual favors from litigants or dating attorneys appearing before him brings the judiciary into disrepute and undermines the American system of justice.

Between 2003 and 2007 judges Mark Ciavarella was the chief juvenile judge in Lucerne County, Pennsylvania. During that time he arranged for the closing of the county juvenile facility and to send juvenile offenders to facilities owned by a private corporation, PA Child Care.

Ciavarella was a tough judge. He sent numerous children to the PA Child Care facilities. A ten year old was sent when she accidentally set her room on fire. Another girl was sent for shooting a bird at a police officer. A boy was sent for throwing a piece of steak at his mother’s boyfriend. Another girl was sent to the facility for mocking an assistant principal.

Not only was he a tough judge, but according to Federal prosecutors he was a corrupt judge. At the same time that he was sending children to PA Child Care facilities he was receiving kickbacks from the corporation. According to the prosecutors Ciavarella and Judge Michael Conahan received $2,600,000 in kickbacks.

He was charged, along with the presiding judge, Michael Conahan in 2009 and they plead guilty, each was to receive 87 months according to the plea bargain. However the chief Federal judge did not like the sweetheart deal and rejected it. Judge Edward M. Kosik found Ciavarella and Conahan insufficiently contrite. Conahan plead guilty, again, to one count and is awaiting sentencing. Ciavarella’a trial is set to start today.

Being a judge does not mean that you are very bright. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin Rudolph T. Randa sentenced Jose Figueroa after a drug trial in which he was found guilty of distribution of cocaine and conspiracy to sell cocaine to 235 months in prison. However it was not the sentence that causes Randa to have his IQ questioned. After all, believe it or not, 235 months was the bottom of Figueroa’s guidelines. But it is some of the things Randa said at sentencing that got him criticized by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Not only did the judge question Figueroa’s Mexican heritage but he questioned Figueroa’s immigration status, as well as that of his wife and three sisters. He brought up unnecessary references to Hugo Chávez, Iranian terrorists, and Adolf Hitler’s dog. He told Figueroa that he ought to be happy that he is doing time in an American jail instead of in Mexico or Turkey. He should also be glad, according to Randa, that he is not in Thailand or Malaysia where he could be sentenced to death. He claimed that American have a greater respect for the rule of law than in some other countries including Mexico.

You guessed it. The Seventh Circuit remanded the case for resentencing with a different judge.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest criminal appeals court in the state, refused to grant Charles D. Hood a new trial despite the fact that the judge and the prosecutor were having an affair.

The affair had been rumored in Collin County, Texas for some time. But it was only confirmed last year when Hood’s attorney deposed the judge, Verla Sue Holland and the prosecutor, Thomas S. O’Connell, Jr. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the motion for a new trial was not timely.

After the 1990 trial Holland was elected to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals where she was a colleague of eight of the nine judges who upheld Hood’s conviction.

It should be noted that Sharon Keller. chief judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, is under investigation for ordering the clerk’s office to close at 5:00 pm. on the day Michael Wayne Richard, was put to death. Earlier that day the United States Supreme Court granted review in Baze v. Rees, a case questioning the same method of lethal injection that was to be used on Richard, despite Richard’s lawyers requesting that the clerk’s office stay open late so they could file a writ of habeas corpus. The filing was delayed due to computer problems.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed itself and decided to preserve the approximately 6500 files of the juveniles who were sentenced by former judge Mark Ciavarella who was charged with receiving kickback from a private prison company in exchange for sending juveniles to the prison. Last month the Supreme Court vacated the juveniles’ convictions. When a conviction is vacated the normal procedure is to destroy the files but by maintaining the files the Supreme Court is allowing the juveniles to sue Ciavarella in Federal Court for the injuries they sustained.

Former Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. of the Luzerne County, Pennsylvania juvenile court and Michael T. Conahan of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas plead guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion. The pleas were a result of an investigation which showed that they accepted kickbacks in exchange for sending juveniles to a private jail. They entered into plea agreements under which each would do 87 months in Federal prisons. U. S District Judge Edward M. Kosik rejected the plea agreement and gave the defendants ten days to decide whether they want to withdraw their pleas and go to trial or whether they want to let the judge sentence them to a prison term in excess of the 87 months. They are facing a maximum sentence of 25 years,

Judge Kosic found Conahan and Caivarella to be insufficiently contrite. Conahan refused to discuss his motives for taking money from PA Child Care, the owner of the private juvenile jail in his interview with the U. S. Probation Office. Ciavarella, in a television interview, apologized to everyone except the children who he sent to the jail. He said, “I didn’t do anything wrong relative to any juvenile. I never took a dime for sending a kid away. All I ever did is what I thought was in the best interest of that child,” Although according to Judge Kosic there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.

A Congressional committee recommended Wednesday the impeachment of U. S. District Judge Samuel Kent who was convicted of obstruction of justice for lying to a judicial investigating committee and the FBI which were investigating sexual abuse complaints against him by his secretary and case manager.

According to testimony by staff members he would grope them, often while drunk. As part of a plea bargain he was sentenced to 33 months on the obstruction of justice charge and the sex related charges were dismissed. At his sentencing a statement by his case manager was read in which she said,

“After forcing himself upon me and asking me to do unspeakable things, he told me that pleasuring him was something I owed him. That was it for me.”

Kent has turned in a resignation effective June 2010, Thus unless he is impeached he will continue to get his full salary for the next year while he is in prison. The House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to impeach him. Assuming that the House votes for impeachment and the Senate convicts him his salary will be terminated immediately.

While he was facing twenty years in prison, U. S. District Judge for the Southern District of Texas Samuel Kent was sentenced to 33 months in prison for obstruction of justice according to an article in TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime.

He lied to a judicial investigating committee and to the FBI investigating complaints that he sexually abused female staff members. In exchange for his guilty plea to one count of obstruction of justice five counts of sexual misconduct were dismissed.

The plea bargain and the sentence sure seem mighty light for one who has admitted to sexual misconduct with two employees. I wonder what his sentence would be if he was not a judge. I’m sure, at a minimum one of the plea conditions would have forced him to resign his judgeship, thus forfeiting his pension. I also suspect that he would have been forced to plead guilty to at least one offense involving sexual misconduct and that he would have gotten more time.

His conduct is pretty horrendous. The primary complainant, Cathy McBroom said in a sentencing statement:

“After forcing himself upon me and asking me to do unspeakable things, he told me that pleasuring him was something I owed him. That was it for me.”

She said he was often drunk and he would grope her. Though she is in therapy she says there are still parts of her dealing with Kent that she is unable to talk about and that it caused severe problems in her marriage. Some of his early statements claimed that the conduct was consensual. I’m sure that made the victims and their husbands real happy.

Kent continues to draw his salary as a judge. He will continue to get paid unless he either resigns or is impeached. He has applied for early retirement claiming a disability. Thus it becomes a race whether he is impeached first or whether his disability request is granted first. Members of the House Judiciary Committee are immediately beginning to work on his impeachment. Committee Chair John Conyers of Michigan and Lamar Smith the ranking Republican on the committee are expected to file a resolution beginning the impeachment process today.