Litigation

Blame Goes All Around in PA Scandal

By Peter Hardin

A panel that investigated the kids-for-cash scandal in Luzerne County, Pa. has assigned widespread blame.

The Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice put the blame, according to a Scranton Times-Tribune article, on “on criminal judges, passive prosecutors, inattentive pubic defenders and Luzerne County’s history of ‘conflict and corruption.’”

“We were all struck by the collapse of the rule of law, that every check and balance that we fully anticipate would come into play to make sure the system works collapsed,” said commission chairman John Cleland, a Philadelphia Inquirer article reported.

The commission listed 43 reform recommendations. Its report detailed a scandal that involved two judges who later were charged with receiving more than $2.8 million in payoffs; they were accused of taking kickbacks to send juveniles to private detention centers.

“Pennsylvania has been so shaken by this that I think there are enough constituencies who are going to push this forward and not let the report gather dust,”  Lynn Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, told the Associated Press. PMC is a partner of Justice at Stake.

Thousands of juvenile convictions were thrown out as a result of the scandal. You can learn more about the scandal from Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on May 28, 2010 (boomark / email).