PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention centre in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.
Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, entered plea agreements in federal court in Scranton admitting that they took payoffs from PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare, between 2003 and 2006.
Conahan, who along with Ciavarella faces up to seven years in prison, did not make any comment on the case.
When someone is sent to a detention centre, the company running the facility receives money from the county government to defray the cost of incarceration. So as more children were sentenced to the detention centre, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from the government, prosecutors said.
Teenagers who came before Ciavarella in juvenile court often were sentenced to detention centers for minor offences that would typically have been classified as misdemeanors, according to the Juvenile Law Centre, a Philadelphia nonprofit group.
One 17-year-old boy was sentenced to three months' detention for being in the company of another minor caught shoplifting.
Others were given similar sentences for "simple assault" resulting from a schoolyard scuffle that would normally draw a warning, a spokeswoman for the Juvenile Law Centre said.
Marsha Levick, chief counsel for the Juvenile Law Centre, estimated that of approximately 5,000 juveniles who came before Ciavarella from 2003 and 2006, between 1,000 and 2,000 received excessively harsh detention sentences. She said the centre will sue the judges, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare for financial compensation for their victims.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court removed Ciavarella and Conahan from their duties after federal prosecutors filed charges on January 26. The court has also appointed a judge to review all the cases involved.
"what would be the capacity of law enforcement
and of the courts to SUPRESS this kind of SPEECH?" -Judge A. Howard Matz, PRE-TRIAL HEARING OF KILLERCOP.COM
Here is the rule of law: Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins. And that's a fact! Why? CauseIsaySo!! You are not entitled to anymore information, 'cause ya got no right to it. Git it? I bet you will soon enough. I'm all a Twitter waiting to see your reaction, to my reaction, to your Treatment. You'll just die when you see what I have in store for everyone in 2010.
Now move along folks, nothing more to see. Make like a Quack and disappear like Dr. Who.
In my own experience as a father, I have discovered several simple devices that can illustrate to a child's mind the principles on which the modern state deals with its citizens. You may find them helpful too. For example, I used to play the simple card game WAR with my son. After a while, when he thoroughly understood that the higher ranking cards beat the lower ranking ones, I created a new game I called GOVERNMENT.
In this game, I was Government, and I won every trick, regardless of who had the better card. My boy soon lost interest in my new game, but I like to think it taught him a valuable lesson for later in life. When your child is a little older, you can teach him about our tax system in a way that is easy to grasp. Offer him, say, $10 to mow the lawn. When he has mowed it and asks to be paid, withhold $5 and explain that this is income tax. Give $1 to his younger brother, and tell him that this is "fair". Also, explain that you need the other $4 yourself to cover the administrative costs of dividing the money. When he cries, tell him he is being "selfish" and "greedy". Later in life he will thank you.
When your child has matured sufficiently to understand how the judicial system works, set a bedtime for him and then send him to bed an hour early. When he tearfully accuses you of breaking the rules, explain that you made the rules and you can interpret them in any way that seems appropriate to you, according to changing conditions.
This will prepare him for the Supreme Court's concept of the U.S. Constitution as a "living document". But it doesn't exist.
Promise often to take him to the movies or the zoo, and then, at the appointed hour, recline in an easy chair with a newspaper and tell him you have changed your plans. When he screams, "but you promised!", explain to him that it was a campaign promise. Every now and then, without warning, slap your child. Then explain that this is defense. Tell him that you must be vigilant at all times to stop any potential enemy before he gets big enough to hurt you. This, too, your child will appreciate, not right at that moment, maybe, but later in life.
At times your child will naturally express discontent with your methods. He may even give voice to a petulant wish that he lived with another family. To forestall and minimize this reaction, tell him how lucky he is to be with you the most loving and indulgent parent in the world, and recount lurid stories of the cruelties of other parents. This will make him loyal to you and, later, receptive to schoolroom claims that the America of the post modern welfare state is still the best and freest country on Earth.
This brings me to the most important child-rearing
technique of all: lying. Lie to your child constantly. Teach him
that words mean nothing - or rather that the meanings of words
are continually "evolving", and may be tomorrow the
opposite of what they are today. Some readers may object that
this is a poor way to raise a child. A few may even call it child
abuse. But that's the whole point: Child abuse is the best preparation
for adult life under our form of GOVERNMENT.
“I want to adopt a special needs child, because adopting a special needs child, who would do that? Only an awesome person, right?”
“The only problem with adopting a retarded child is that the retarded child, when you are 80 is well, still retarded and she wouldn't enjoy the freedoms of being set free at age 18, so I am only going to adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness so it has an expiration date, because who would adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness? Well, someone who is awesome like me!” Someone retarded, like Debra Yang, above, or her assistant, Elena. Or even Greg.
Henry Louis Gates' Contempt Of Cop Emptywheel - At tonight's nationally televised press conference, a reporter asked President Obama a question about the July 16 arrest of famed Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. Obama set off...
Contempt of Cop' by William Norman Grigg - The police are to the government as the edge is to the knife, insists sociologist David Bayley, who apparently couldn't explain why the typical...
Welcome to America Now step inside the jail cell - The audio exchange in this video was apparently recorded at the U.S. Canada border after a Canadian displayed contempt-of-cop towards the American law enforcement officer asking questions.
Contemptible police tactics - Cops raid the home of a licensed medical marijuanna provider in Washington, handcuff the fourteen year old son and put a gun to his head, and search the nineteen year old daughter and take the contents of her mickey-mouse wallet.
How To Survive Traffic Stops in America Submit, Instantly! - What the cops want is immediate obedience. Many cops are ex-military and view the civilian motorists of America about like they viewed the hapless peasants of Iraq and Afghanistan that is, with contempt, not as fellow citizens deserving of civility and respect. It is a possibly lethal mistake to do anything other than submit, instantly and obey!
My radio interview with Katherine Albrecht - Carlos Miller Photography is Not a Crime is interviewed by Katherine Albrecht, activist, radio host and privacy advocate, Tuesday afternoon where they discussed his blog, his arrests, the situation in the United Kingdom and the spread of contempt of cop cases that are popping up on the internet on a regular basis.
