Worse Than Poor Judgment

I haven’t posted anything under Stupid, Vicious Adults in a long time, but this case pretty well demands it. In Wilkes-Barre, PA, two juvenile judges have broken too many laws to count:

Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.

While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.

“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003.

The Constitutional proscription against “cruel and unusual punishment” was broken so many times, I doubt there is a punishment unsuitable for this kind of corruption. If anything, seven years and three months is not enough. These two greedy bastards who ruined children’s lives for fun and profit should never be allowed to walk the streets again.

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