A Word on the Luzerne County Judicial Scandal
I am not originally from Philadelphia.
I am a proud alum of Kane Area High School in Kane, McKean County, Pennsylvania. Earlier this week, I was interviewed by The Kane Republican, the daily newspaper in town. After we talked about some of the bigger cases I have handled over the years, both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney, the reporter asked me whether there was any case out there right now that I would want to prosecute. It was interesting question, and one that I had to think about for a minute.
But only for a minute. I told the reporter that if I could be assigned as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, I would leave my practice in a heartbeat to prosecute Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan.
Who are Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan? They are two men who somehow got elected as judges in Luzerne County (just south and west of Scranton) and then used the immense power of their judicial robes to send children to prison in exchange for payments from the owner of local private juvenile detention facilities. Together, the two of them made $2.6 million dollars and ruined the lives of hundreds of families. Separately, they have shaken the foundations of our system of justice.
Our system depends on the integrity of our judges. If a prosecutor goes overboard, the defense attorney is there to suppress evidence and get charges thrown out. If a defense attorney unfairly attacks the victim on the stand, the prosecutor is there to protect her and to seek justice for her from the jury.
But if a judge lies and cheats, there is no adversary to call him on it. We pay our judges decent salaries, give them staff and clerks, and provide them big offices and pensions so that they can do one thing: concentrate on the law and its just interpretation. Our society depends on this.
No prosecutor could get a sentence long enough for Ciavarella and Conahan, or a punishment severe enough for the Constitutional damage they have wrought. But I would sure like to try.
