Read more Luzerne County Judges articlesPosted on 02/13/2009 8:31:10 AM PST by Born Conservative
WILKES-BARRE - The first of what may be several class action lawsuits filed in response to the alleged juvenile detention scandal was filed in federal court late Thursday.
Two lawfirms - Cefalo & Associates of West Pittston and Caroselli, Beachler, McTiernan & Conboy in Pittsburgh - filed the lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of children and their families who were impacted by Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan.
Ciavarella, 58, and Conahan, 56, pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to conspiring to impede the Internal Revenue Service in the collection of federal income taxes and with having devised a scheme to defraud the citizens of Luzerne County of their right to honest services, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Federal authorities alleged Ciavarella and Conahan accepted more than $2.6 million from January 2003 to April 2007 from the construction and operation of juvenile detention facilities, including PA Child Care in Pittston Township. They have agreed, according to federal court documents, to serve 87 months in federal prison.
According to a joint news release from the two law firms, the civil complaint alleged Ciavarella and Conahan - acting under the cloak of the court - willfully and knowingly engaged in racketeering activity and deprived the children of their civil rights.
"At the hands of two grossly corrupt judges and several conspirators, hundreds of Pennsylvania children, their families and loved ones, were victimized and their civil rights were violated," Attorney Michael J. Cefalo said. "It's our intent to make sure that the system rights this terrible injustice and holds those responsible accountable."
In addition to Ciavarella and Conahan, the civil complaint lists defendants as:
Robert J. Powell, Powell Law Group, P.C., PA Child Care., LLC, Western PA Child Care, LLC, Robert K. Mericle, Mericle Construction, Inc., Gregory Zappala, Pinnacle Group of Jupiter, LLC, Barbara Conahan, Cindy Ciavarella, Beverage Marketing of PA, Inc., Vision Holdings, LLC, Mid Atlantic Youth Services Corp., and an unnamed attorney.
The news release from the law firms alleges the defendants in the civil case participated in and benefitted from the criminal activity engaged by Ciavarella and Conahan. Powell allegedly conspired, according to the news release, with other defendants as far back as 2003 to arrange millions in payments to the judges and then further conspired to conceal the payments.
Powell also benefitted from the illegal activity, the news release from the law firms alleges.
"The one place our kids should absolutely feel safe is in our system of justice, but in this case, the system served injustice," Attorney William R. Caroselli said.
Good! Send them to debtor’s prison.
These guys are just a corrupt as the Judges and should be looking at long sentences for falsely imprisoning children.
Likely that the county will be held responsible, as well as the individual crooks. I wonder if the judgment could put the county out of business?
NO don’t fry them. Cook them LOOOW and SLOOOOOW!
The damage done to some of these kid’s lives can never be undone.
>These guys are just a corrupt as the Judges and should be looking at long sentences for falsely imprisoning children.
Indeed, doesn’t false imprisonment fall under kidnapping?
Deprivation of Rights under Color of Law.
That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing...
Having said that, the success rate for sueing judges for a decision they made on the bench is zero.
Although, I suppose their guilty pleas to bribery will help.
It would give a fresh start, and allow a clean out of those who are public employee crooks.
This is one class action suit I can get behind. I just hope the lawyers don’t take the lion’s share as usual, and most of it goes to the kids who were wronged.
That's a good question. Hopefully as part of the plea the judges are singing like canaries, and more indictments are coming.
The plaintiffs can only get so much out of the two judges, so the class action should probably expand to the detention centers too. These kids will end up owning the place in which they were formerly incarcerated. Poetic justice.
Normally you can't even sue a judge for anything he does under the judicial position even in proven cases of gross negligence and abuse of power. The Supreme Court over the years has always pushed towards this absolute immunity despite any laws Congress has passed (they simply re-interpreted the laws restricting immunity to mean the restriction doesn't apply to judges).
But this is so egregious they might allow it.
Dennis v. Sparks is an excellent case regarding this subject.
Judges cannot be sued for acts related to judicial functions associated with a courtroom, no matter how corrupt. On the other hand, they can be sued in their individual capacities for administrative decisions not specifically linked to a court case. Sexual harassment of court personnel is one obvious example.
But this is so egregious they might allow it.
It's not going to happen. The liability of various government agencies will depend on whether any of their employees knew or should have know what was going on.
There's a lot more precedent than that for judicial immunity when they act within their jurisdiction, but there are chinks in the armor. Big cases like this are ones that change precedent. Personally, I'm against being able to sue judges in normal circumstances because it would ruin the judiciary with meaningless suits whenever someone doesn't like a judgment. If a judge is wrong, misinformed, or just plain inept, it shouldn't be cause for a suit.
But here, with convictions and manifest harm done due to illegal acts in the performance of their jobs, immunity should not survive. Actually, that should probably be the bar -- upon conviction for an illegal act, or upon ruling by the judicial ethics board that serious ethical rules were broken. One should be able to sue if such unethical or illegal acts could reasonably be said to have influenced the a judge's decisions.
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