The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled late Thursday that almost all juvenile delinquency cases heard by former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella from Jan. 1, 2003 to May 31, 2008 must be thrown out.
Ciavarella took millions in kickbacks to incarcerate juvenile offenders in private detention facilities.
This is an excellent link about this story, one of the most egregious abuses of judicial power (outside of appointing Bush President) in the history of the United States.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/...
Ciavarella and Michael Conahan ,who was serving as president judge of the Luzerne County Common Pleas Court, a position that allowed him to control the county-court budget, entered a plea deal that would have them serve 7 year sentences. The federal judge presiding over the case, 83-year-old Edwin M. Kosik, last month rejected the plea agreements Ciavarella and Conahan had signed in exchange for their admissions of guilt.
Kosik ruled the sentences were too lenient and Conahan and Ciavarella had failed to fully accept responsibility for their alleged wrongdoing.
They now face much more serious charges including racketeering, bribery, extortion and money laundering. They have and pleaded not guilty, an opportunity that they did not extend to the thousands of juveniles they put in detention.
The State Supreme Court today vacated almost all of the their juvenile cases - http://www.standardspeaker.com/... (with a link to the ruling).
Right now, Ciavarella and Conahan are attempting to dodge civil liability by claiming judicial immunity. The key issue centers on whether acts Conahan and Ciavarella took were part of their judicial duties http://www.timesleader.com/...
One would hope that naked racketeering from the bench would be beyond the pale of judicial immunity.
Over 7.2 million adults are on probation or parole or incarcerated in jail or prison in 2006. That's about 2.4% of the U.S. adult population, or 1 in every 42 adults.
At midyear 2008, there were 4,777 black male inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents being held in state or federal prison and local jails, compared to 1,760 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents and 727 white male inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/...
If I am reading this properly, nearly 5% of black males are behind bars.
25% of all prisoners in the world are in the U.S., which comprises about 4% of the population. To my knowledge, we are the most incarcerating country in the world.
The United States comes in first, too, on a more meaningful list from the prison studies center, the one ranked in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.)
The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England's rate is 151; Germany's is 88; and Japan's is 63.
The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate. http://www.nytimes.com/...
It's my opinion that Ciavarella and Conahan represent the extreme case of an industry that rivals the military-industrial complex - the prosecution/enforcement/incarceration industry.