Pa. Democrat judges in kids-for-cash scheme ordered to pay more than $200M

[zinn]

Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children
to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more
than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the
worst judicial scandals in U.S. history.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in
compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300
people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the
plaintiffs are "the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic
proportions."

In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and
another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention
center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and
co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile
court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of
kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA
Child Care.

Ciavarella ordered children as young as 8 to detention, many of them
first-time offenders deemed delinquent for petty theft, jaywalking,
truancy, smoking on school grounds and other minor infractions. The judge
often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled,
handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to put up a defense
or even say goodbye to their families.

"Ciavarella and Conahan abandoned their oath and breached the public
trust," Conner wrote Tuesday in his explanation of the judgment. "Their
cruel and despicable actions victimized a vulnerable population of young
people, many of whom were suffering from emotional issues and mental
health concerns."

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out some 4,000 juvenile convictions
involving more than 2,300 kids after the scheme was uncovered.

It's unlikely the now-adult victims will see even a fraction of the eye-
popping damages award, but a lawyer for the plaintiffs said it's a
recognition of the enormity of the disgraced judges' crimes.

"It's a huge victory," Marsha Levick, co-founder and chief counsel of the
Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center and a lawyer for the plaintiffs,
said Wednesday. "To have an order from a federal court that recognizes the
gravity of what the judges did to these children in the midst of some of
the most critical years of their childhood and development matters
enormously, whether or not the money gets paid."

Another plaintiffs' attorney, Sol Weiss, said he would begin a probe of
the judges' assets, but did not think they had any money to pay a
judgment.

Ciavarella, 72, is serving a 28-year prison sentence in Kentucky. His
projected release date is 2035.

Conahan, 70, was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison but was
released to home confinement in 2020 - with six years left on his sentence
- because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Conner ruled after hearing often-emotional testimony last year from 282
people who appeared in Luzerne County juvenile court between 2003 and 2008
- 79 of whom were under 13 when Ciavarella sent them to juvenile detention
- and 32 parents.

"They recounted his harsh and arbitrary nature, his disdain for due
process, his extraordinary abruptness, and his cavalier and boorish
behavior in the courtroom," Conner wrote.

One unnamed child victim testified that Ciavarella had "ruined my life"
and "just didn't let me get to my future," according to Conner's ruling.

Said another plaintiff: "I feel I was just sold out for no reason. Like
everybody just stood in line to be sold."

Another victim described how he shook uncontrollably during a routine
traffic stop - a consequence of the traumatizing impact of his childhood
detention - and had to show his mental health records in court to "explain
why my behavior was so erratic."

Several of the childhood victims who were part of the lawsuit when it
began in 2009 have since died from overdoses or suicide, Conner said.

To calculate compensatory damages, the judge decided each plaintiff was
entitled to a base rate of $1,000 for each day of wrongful detention, and
adjusted that amount based on the circumstances of each case. Substantial
punitive damages were warranted because the disgraced judges inflicted
"unspeakable physical and emotional trauma" on children and adolescents,
Conner wrote.

The damages award only covers plaintiffs who chose to participate in
process.

Other major figures in the case settled years ago, including the builder
and the owner of the private lockups and their companies, in payouts
totaling about $25 million.

https://abc7chicago.com/pennsylvania-judges-send-kids-to-jail-for-profit-
jails-exchange-kickback/12139962/

[plateshutoverlock]

This is why the public/private bastardization is a shit idea that turns
out to be half assed or fails outright.

But because doing anything else is red and we don't want to be like
"those commies", this kind of shit goes on. And yet Europe and even
fucking Canada makes an ass out of us by providing superior services.