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.

Two Pennsylvania juvenile court judges were indicted for accepting kickbacks in exchange for sending children to a private jail.

Often former Luzerne County (Wilkes Barre) Court of Common Plea Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan sentenced juveniles to the private jails without appointing lawyers for them on minor offenses. Among the charges for which children were placed in the private jail were for stealing loose change from cars, writing prank notes, possession of drug paraphernalia and mocking an assistant principal on myspace.com.

The judges received 2.8 million dollars in kickbacks from the private jails.

Last year Ciavarella and Conahan plead guilty to a sweetheart deal that would have given them 87 month sentences but the pleas were rejected as being too soft by United States District Court Judge Edward M. Kosik and the pleas were withdrawn.

Conahan plead guilty last week to one count of a racketeering corruption charge. There is no plea agreement and Judge Kosik could sentence him up to the maximum of twenty years. Ciavarella also withdrew his plea after Judge Kosik refused the 87 month deal and he is facing trial.

In 2006 Congress enacted the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. The act requires among other things that youth as young as fourteen years register, often for life, following a conviction or a juvenile adjudication for certain sex offenses. it also mandates the publication on the internet of specific information about certain sex offenders including their addresses.

A study by the Associated Press found as to juveniles convicted of registrable offenses the law has not been fully implemented in most jurisdictions. Twenty-one states, according to the study, now require juveniles to register as sex offenders and another nineteen state require them to register if they are convicted as adults. The law is quite complicated and Ohio is the only state fully in compliance. Other states risk loosing Federal funds to support criminal justice programs.

Part of the problem is that states vary in their perception of the need to require juveniles to register as sex offenders. Sex offender registrants often have trouble getting jobs, finding housing, and blending into society. This is particularly true now that the names of registrants are available on the internet.

Long term registration may be appropriate for those who are uncurable. But many experts in the field feel that juveniles can be rehabilitated and registration only makes it more difficult. There is the case of the sixteen year old Iowa boy who was required to register after having sex with a thirteen year old girl. Such behavior is not necessarily proof of a long term sex offender requiring lifetime registration.

A thirteen year old boy punched a schoolmate and stole forty-six cents from him. Proper punishment–some time in youth hall maybe. Counseling–perhaps. But in this case the fourteen year old, his mother and his brother, but not his stepfather who is a US citizen were almost deported when it was discovered that their visa had expired.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom instituted a new policy under which every juvenile alleged to have committed felonious conduct and who was in the country illegally is reported to Homeland Security for deportation. No conviction is necessary. So when the boy was arrested and charged with robbing forty-six cents the Juvenile Probation Department reported it to Homeland Security and the kid, his mother and his five year old brother were ordered to leave the country by March 5. Luckily some strings were pulled in Washington and the deportation order was delayed. Yesterday it was announced that the family had been given green cards and would not be deported.

The ironic part of this is that the boy’s mother, Tracey Washington is married to Charles Washington, a Municipal Bus driver and a United States citizen. Therefore she and her children are eligible for citizenship.

As Charles Washington pointed out after it was announced that his family would be allowed to remain in the country, in a letter to Newsom

“Your policy hurts families and tears children away from their parents for minor, first-time offenses,” Charles Washington, a Muni bus driver, said in a letter to the mayor.

“Our family’s luck in this case was unique, but Mr. Newsom, the pain we felt when our family was facing deportation as a result of your policy is not unique.”

Other consequences are that children who have spent most of their life in this country are deported to countries where they cannot speak the language. Children may be deported, without their parents to countries where they do not have family or know anyone. The Board of Supervisors pass legislation rejecting the mayor”s policy. But Newsom vetoed it. The Board overrode the veto but Newsom has refused to enforce the legislation.

A twelve year old boy will be tried in adult court for the murder of his father’s girlfriend, according to to a Pennsylvania judge. He is facing life in prison if convicted.

Jordan Brown, who was eleven at the time is accused of shooting his father’s pregnant girlfriend in the head while she was sleeping. Allegedly he approached Kenzie Marie Houk with his loaded gun and shot her in the head.

After a hearing Lawrence County Judge Dominick Motto refused to send the case to Juvenile Court. He said “This offense was an execution-style killing of a defenseless pregnant young mother. A more horrific crime is difficult to imagine,”

At the hearing there was evidence that Brown wrapped the gun in a blanket. After shooting Houk he went to school getting rid of the empty shells on the way. Furthermore the evidence shows that he continues to deny shooting Houk despite the facts that forensic tests show that she was shot with Brown’s 20 gauge juvenile model shotgun.

Assuming that he did kill Houk, the fact that he does not show any remorse indicates to me that he is not mature enough to be tried in adult court. He obviously did not understand the severity of his actions.

Under Pennsylvania law the burden is on children over ten years old to prove that they can be rehabilitated in the juvenile system. But Judge Motto found that Brown could not be rehabilitated before he turns 21. Talking about rehabilitation prior to trial appears to assume Brown’s guilt. Unless and until Brown is convicted he is assumed to be innocent. Therefore it seems to violate the Constitutional requirement that he is being asked to proved that he can be rehabilitated prior to finding that he is guilty.

Questions must be asked about why the child had a loaded gun. Even if his father was teaching him how to hunt, why was he allowed to have a loaded gun in the house and why did the gun not have a trigger lock on it?

The Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of sentencing people for crimes, other than homicide, committed as minors, to life without parole. In the entire world there are 109 people in prison for crimes, other than homicide, sentenced to life without parole. All 109 are in the United States and 77 of the 109 are in Florida. The two cases currently before the Supreme Court are from Florida. One involved the rape of a 72 year old woman and the other an armed burglary.

The United States and Somalia are the only two members of the United Nations that have not signed an international treaty banning the sentencing of minors to life without parole.

Florida not only has three quarters of the juveniles locked up for life without parole for crimes other than homicide in the world but it also has an extremely high number of juveniles being charged with felonies in adult court. Florida tried 3592 juveniles as adults in the fiscal year 2007-2008, Hillsborough County (Tampa) alone tried 660 juveniles in adult court.

San Francisco (along with a number of other cities including Austin, Baltimore, and New York) is a sanctuary city. A sanctuary city is one that is friendly to immigrants. It does not cooperate with the Federal government when the government wants to deport illegal aliens.

There are exceptions to the sanctuary policy. For example city employees will report suspected felons to ICE for deportation. Until July this exception did not apply to juveniles in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle ran a series of articles about a group of Honduran juveniles. They were placed in a group home in Southern California after being detained on drug charges in order to avoid deportation. They walked away from the home without supervision. At approximately the same time Edwin Ramos was arrested and charged with the murder of a father and two sons in a road rage incident. Ramos was in this country illegally. He was arrested twice as a juvenile on crimes of violence but he had not been deported.

The US Attorney is investigating whether San Francisco officials violated Federal law. At that point San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor ordered city officials to report juveniles arrested on felony charges to ICE if they are suspected of being in this country illegally.

Tuesday the San Francisco Board of Supervisors by a veto proof margin of 8-2 voted to amend the policy to only deport those found to have committed a felony. The legislation was sponsored by by David Campos who originally came to this country as an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. Many juveniles are charged with felonies but due to plea bargaining or judicial orders the charges are either reduced to misdemeanors or dismissed. Newsom stated that he will not only veto the legislation but he will ignore it.

Newsom is supported by the City Attorney’s office which wrote a memo claiming that the Board of Supervisor amendment to the Sanctuary Policy is illegal and will adversely affect the city’s position in several current law suits including a wrongful death suit by the family of the alleged victims of Edwin Ramos. Newsom claims that if the amendment is enforced local authorities will be subject to Federal litigation for violating Federal law. But the City Attorney’s memo only says that the law is unsettled and that they do not know the results of any litigation resulting from the Supervisor’s amendment.

When we last visited the story of Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, about a month ago, the former Luzerne County Pennsylvania juvenile court judges had allegedly received kickbacks from a private jail in exchange for sending kids to the facility. In the process they denied the kids the right to an attorney and ran roughshod over the kids constitutional rights. Senior U.S. District Judge Edward M. Kosik rejected a sweetheart deal they made with prosecutors to spend a significantly below guideline sentence of 87 months in prison.

Wednesday, the Grand Jury indicted them in a 77 page indictment covering 48 counts of racketeering, extortion, bribery, money laundering, fraud and other crimes. The indictment was made public yesterday.

The indictment also seeks the return of 2.8 million dollars wrongfully obtain by Ciavarella and Conahan.

The arraignment on the indictment will be Tuesday.

Four Liberian immigrant boys are charged with the rape of an 8 year old Liberian girl in Phoenix. The oldest boy is 14. A second boy is 13 and the two youngest are 10. The 14 year old is being tried as an adult and entered a plea yesterday. He is charged with with one count each of kidnapping, sexual assault and attempted sexual conduct with a minor, and five counts of sexual conduct with a minor.The District Attorney also wants to charge the 13 year old as an adult.

The allegation is that the four boys lured the girl into a shed in their apartment complex with a promise of gum, restrained her and raped her.

After the alleged rape the girl’s father was quoted as saying that he did not want the daughter anymore–that she had shamed the family. Child Protective Services then took the eight year old out of the household.

The children, and all of them are children, come from a country where children are raped all too often. According to Doctors without Borders which treated 275 rape victims in the first four months of this year in Liberia, 61 per cent of the victims were under 13 years old and 28 percent of the victims were under 5 years old. Rape only became illegal in Liberia in 2006.

According to an Associated Press article the fourteen year old was raised in a refugee camp in the Ivory Coast. He came to the United States with his mother and his sister in 2005. His father is still in Africa.

The girl cannot understand why she has been taken away from her family. Instead of receiving the support she needs, she thinks she is being punished for the rape.

The criminal justice system in Phoenix has failed all of the children. The girl has been removed from her family and her support system. Her family needs counseling and help but putting her with strange people is the wrong thing to do. She feels like she is being punished–exactly the wrong feeling for her to have.

The boys, particularly the 14 year old are being punished for behavior that they committed without any evil intent. They came from a country where rape was an everyday thing. It was not even illegal when they left the country. Now they are in a strange country being treated as adult and being held to adult standards. They are in serious need of help and counseling, as are other refugees from war torn countries. But incarceration is not the solution.

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.