Tough Job for Problem-Solver Pa. Judge: Up to 1,200 Invalid Youth Convictions
Fixing the result of massive corruption in the Luzerne County, Pa., juvenile justice system won’t be easy. As many as 1,200 cases reportedly may be involved in a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling yesterday concerning cases decided between between 2003 and 2008 by Mark Ciavarella Jr., the former president judge of Luzerne County.
Ciavarella is now headed to prison, under a plea agreement last month. But determining how to resolve the injustice that has been done poses a complex problem, according to the Associated Press.
Civil rights attorney Barry Dyller represented plaintiffs in the case and says juveniles who were unfairly convicted should have their convictions overturned. “People weren’t allowed to speak, weren’t allowed to have witnesses, weren’t presumed innocent,” he tells the news agency. “Nobody got a fair hearing.”
In fact, detention center workers were often told in advance, before hearings were even held, how many juveniles to expect, reports the New York Times. As discussed in earlier ABAJournal.com posts, both Ciavarella and a fellow former judge have admitted their guilt concerning allegations that they accepted some $2.6 million in kickbacks in exchange for referring juveniles to specific detention facilities.
Hence, a special master appointed to oversee the resolution of the situation likely will overturn at least many of the convictions. And those who have grown to old to be considered juveniles probably won’t be retried as adults. But a different approach may be appropriate for particularly violent offenders, as well as teens who need treatment that the juvenile system offers, the AP explains.
Meanwhile, will parents who have been forced to pay for court services in cases that may never have required such intensive intervention in the first place get their money back?
Berks County Senior Judge Arthur Grim, who is the special master assigned to resolve the situation, knows he’s got a tough job. “At this point, I’m not prepared to tell you what the answer will be,” he tells the news agency, “because I don’t know.”
Many have wondered, watching from the sidelines as the judicial corruption case unfolded in recent months, how the juvenile justice system in Luzerne County could have run so badly off the tracks.
Today’s lengthy New York Times article, which provides what appears to be by far the most detailed account so far of what went wrong, says individuals both inside and outside the court system attempted to object to what was going on, in complaints dating back perhaps a decade or longer. But no one, it seemed until recently, had the authority or the will to step in and put a stop to the presiding judge’s dubious assertion of power in matters both large and small.
Even now, the newspaper writes, as an ongoing federal investigation of Luzerne County continues, those with whom the Times spoke are still intimidated. “Virtually all former colleagues and courthouse workers would not allow themselves to be identified because the federal investigation into the kickback scheme was ongoing, and they feared for their jobs if they alienated former allies of the judges.”
Additional coverage:
Reading Eagle: “Berks County Judge Arthur E. Grim”
Times-Leader: “Juvenile records to be erased”
Last updated at 9:45 p.m. to add information from New York Times coverage.
