Kids for Cash judges ordered to pay $200 million

Judges Who Sent Kids to Detention Centers for Financial Kickbacks Ordered To Pay Over $200 Million | Reason - Emma Camp:

August 18, 2022 - "For almost seven years, two Pennsylvania judges sent hundreds of children — some of them as young as 8 years old — to privately run juvenile detention centers in exchange for financial kickbacks. On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Conner ordered former Judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan to pay over $200 million in compensatory and punitive damages to their victims.

"Starting in 2000, the pair sent children into juvenile detention for offenses as innocuous as jaywalking, petty theft, or truancy. In what became known as the "kids for cash" scandal, the children were sent to two privately run detention centers whose builder and co-owner paid the men $2.8 million, according to the Associated Press, over the course of the scheme.

"According to testimony from plaintiffs during the class-action suit, many of the sentences the children received were staggering. One plaintiff, who was 16 at the time, was sentenced to 11 months for driving the wrong way down a one-way street without a license. Another girl, then only 10, was sent to detention for a schoolyard fight with no serious injuries. One child was sent to detention for stealing a Hershey bar, another for writing on a school window with a marker.... One plaintiff was sentenced to an additional eight months in detention after Ciavarella instructed him to pick a sports team, and he picked the wrong one....  

"According to CBS news, following the plot's discovery, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has thrown out 4,000 juvenile convictions between 2003 and 2008. However, many of the plaintiffs still suffer from mental health problems. Several children sent to detention by Ciavarella and Conahan have died by suicide or drug overdose in the years after their detention. 'Children and adolescents suffered unspeakable physical and emotional trauma at the hands of two judicial officers who swore by solemn oath to uphold the law,' Judge Conner wrote in a memorandum on the ruling. 'Ciavarella and Conahan abandoned their oath and breached the public trust. Their cruel and despicable actions victimized a vulnerable population of young people, many of whom were suffering from emotional issues and mental health concerns.'

"Unfortunately, it is unlikely that any of the plaintiffs will receive financial compensation for their unjust detentions as, according to the A.P., Ciavarella and Conahan are now serving lengthy prison sentences. Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in prison, and Conahan was sentenced to 17 years, though he was released to home confinement in 2020, citing COVID-19-related concerns.... 

"The plaintiffs in this case 'are the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions. The law is powerless to restore to plaintiffs the weeks, months, and years lost because of the actions of the defendants,' wrote Conner. 'But we hope that by listening to their experiences and acknowledging the depth of the damage done to their lives, we can provide them with a measure of closure and…ensure that their stories are never forgotten.'

Read more: https://reason.com/2022/08/18/judges-who-sent-kids-to-detention-centers-for-financial-kickbacks-ordered-to-pay-over-200-million/

‘Kids for Cash’ scandal documented (video)

Corrupt ‘Kids for Cash’ judge ruined more than 2,000 lives - Larry Getlen, New York Post:

February 23, 2014 - "Hillary Transue, 14, created a fake, humorous Myspace page about her school’s vice principal. Justin Bodnar, 12, cursed at another student’s mother. Ed Kenzakoski, 17, did nothing at all. It didn’t matter.

"As we see in the documentary “Kids for Cash,” ... all three Luzerne County, Pa. teens met the same fate for their minor infractions.... They were brought before Judge Mark A. Ciavarella and, without warning or the chance to offer a defense, found themselves pronounced guilty, shackled and sentenced to months of detention in a cockroach-infested jail. They were trapped in the juvenile justice system for years, robbing most of them of their entire high-school experience.

"Judge Ciavarella, who sentenced around 3,000 children in a similar manner, was later sentenced himself to 28 years in prison for financial crimes related to his acceptance of $2.2 million as a finder’s fee for the construction of a for-profit facility in which to house these so-called delinquents. The scandal was called 'Kids for Cash,' and it rocked the state in 2009.... Ciavarella had 2,480 of his convictions reversed and expunged....

"At the end of 'Kids for Cash,' directed by Robert May, information flashes across the screen saying: 'Two million children are arrested every year in the US, 95% for non-violent crimes'; that '66% of children who have been incarcerated never return to school'; and that 'the US incarcerates nearly 5 times more children than any other nation in the world.'”

Read more; https://nypost.com/2014/02/23/film-details-teens-struggles-in-state-detention-in-payoff-scandal/
'via Blog this'

U.S. Congress passes First Step Act

First Step Act: House passes criminal justice reform, following Senate - Vox - German Lopez:

December 20, 2018 - "The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a criminal justice reform bill, sending the most significant changes to the federal criminal justice system in decades to President Donald Trump’s desk. The Senate previously overwhelmingly approved the legislation in an 87-12 vote.

"The bill, called the First Step Act, makes modest changes to the federal system. It very slightly pulls back punitive mandatory minimum sentences by, for example, letting judges give lower sentences in some circumstances and relaxing a 'three strikes' law to give 25 years instead of life in prison. It makes 2010 crack sentencing reforms, which eased crack sentences to bring them more in line with powder cocaine penalties, retroactive. It expands 'good time credits' that well-behaved inmates can use to get out of prison a little earlier. It creates 'earned time credits' that encourage inmates to take part in rehabilitative programs for an earlier release.

"It doesn’t end the war on drugs or mass incarceration. It won’t stop police from locking up nonviolent drug offenders. It doesn’t legalize marijuana. It doesn’t even end mandatory minimums or reduce prison sentences across the board, and it in fact only tweaks both. As the First Step Act’s name suggests, its supporters consider it a first step.

"The bill also only affects the federal system — which, with about 181,000 imprisoned people, holds a small but significant fraction of the US jail and prison population of 2.1 million.... In total, the First Step Act will let a few thousand inmates — likely around 6,000 to 7,000 — out of prison early once it’s enacted, and slightly shorten prison sentences in the future....

"Even though Trump ran on a 'tough on crime' platform in which he promised to support harsh prison sentences, the president has come to support the legislation — in large part thanks to the backing of key advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner. He’s expected to sign the bill in the coming days."

Read more: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/20/18148482/first-step-act-criminal-justice-reform-house-congress
'via Blog this'

Cash bail requirements cost U.S. $15 billion/year

Report: Imprisoning People Who Can’t Pay Bail Costs America $15 Billion a Year - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

December 19, 2018 - "America's dependence on cash bail does more than just deprive people of their liberty merely for being accused of a crime; it also costs the rest of us a fortune....

"A new report by The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution attempts to measure the full financial impact of pretrial detention in the United States. Analysts Patrick Liu, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh calculated that pretrial detentions that are the result solely of people being unable to pay bail cost the country $15 billion a year.

"They arrived at this figure by looking at the average number of people who are sitting in jails every day who have been offered bail but haven't paid it, typically because they cannot afford it. That's about 412,000 people, nearly a quarter of our incarcerated population. They calculated how much it costs to jail somebody each day. This varies wildly from state to state, but averages out to $77.67 a day, or about $28,000 a year per person....

"Liu et al. also did their best to calculate out how much money the economy loses due the amount of time somebody spends in jail and is therefore unable to work. That worked out to an average of about $8,590 annually per prisoner. All together, that comes out to $15.26 billion a year....

"The report also looks at trends of pretrial detention and finds a dramatic increase over a decade of both the number of people being held in jail prior to trial and the amount of time they have to spend waiting for their day in court.

"Since the 1990s, the number of people who have been ordered to pay bail (or some other financial obligation) in order to be freed has risen from 53 percent to 72 percent. What's more, pretrial detentions have increased even as total arrests have gone down....

"During this timeframe, the amount of time it took between arrest and adjudication for people charged with crimes increased in pretty much every category.... So people who cannot afford the increasing amounts of money being asked for their freedom are being punished with even longer waits behind bars....

"About 50 percent of those who are released before trial need a commercial bond (as in a bail bondsman) to cover the court's imposed bail. That means they have to pay typically 10 percent to the bondsman to be freed, which is money they never get back. Essentially, they're being ordered to pay a fine to a third party (sometimes in the thousands of dollars) to be released. If they don't, they sit in a jail cell. Either way, they're punished prior to conviction."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/12/19/report-imprisoning-people-who-cant-pay-b
'via Blog this'

Trump backs criminal justice reform bill

Bipartisan criminal-justice reform could happen soon — if the 1990s wing of the GOP gets out of the way - Los Angeles Times:

November 19, 2018 - "A federal criminal-justice reform bill designed to make sentencing more rational and inmates’ return to society more successful has bipartisan support and last week won the backing of President Trump.... The bill, known as the First Step Act, would move federal sentencing laws and reentry programs ever so slightly in the direction of reforms already adopted in many deep blue states such as California and many bright red ones such as Georgia.

"Congress has already reduced sentences for crack convictions to bring them more in line with similar offenses involving powder cocaine, but the changes apply only to convictions handed down in 2010 or later. This bill would finally make those changes retroactive and would thus affect thousands of imprisoned, mostly African American men sentenced under the unfair drug laws adopted in the crime panic of the 1990s. It also would eliminate mandatory life-without-parole for repeat drug offenders and would reduce mandatory sentences for other drug offenses by a few years. It would reduce mandatory minimums for gun crimes ([but] does not eliminate the availability of much longer sentences). And it would enforce laws and regulations that are already on the books but are not always followed — for example, applying good-conduct credits ... and providing rehabilitative services and education.

"These changes are overdue. Long sentences keep thousands of Americans locked up well after the punitive or rehabilitative value of the incarceration has been exhausted. The bill returns some discretion to judges to make the sentence fit the crime....

"The bill is modest in the extreme.... For all its modesty, though, it’s a good bill, and if they are smart, Democrats and Republicans, the House and the Senate, will join and adopt it during the lame-duck session....

"Many conservatives have come to question tough sentencing laws, seeing them as contrary to bedrock values of small government, fiscal discipline, personal responsibility and family preservation. The 'Right on Crime' movement has worked to recapture from liberals the moral leadership on criminal-justice reform. At the same time, tough-on-crime Republicans like [Sen. Tom] Cotton (and recently departed Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions) remain influential....

"Trump ... campaigned as a traditional tough-on-crime conservative and backed Sessions.... Earlier this year, he called for the death penalty for drug dealers.... But the bill has been strongly pushed by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the president has now signed on. Most of the signals are good. Congress would be wise to act quickly, before the notoriously mercurial president changes his mind."

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-step-act-20181119-story.html
'via Blog this'

Rand Paul bill would repeal indefinite detention

Rand Paul Bill Would Repeal Indefinite Detention Provision of NDAA - Joe Wolverton II, The New American:

June 13, 2017 - "Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced his plan to reintroduce S. 1300, the Sixth Amendment Preservation Act, a bill aimed at reasserting the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial in all prosecutions.

"Dr. Paul’s legislation would prevent any future authorization of military force from being used to justify indefinitely detaining any person in America without trial. 'Giving the accused their day in court isn’t a suggestion,' said Dr. Paul. 'It’s enshrined in our Constitution as a cornerstone of our judicial system. My bill reminds our government that the Founders did not put an expiration date on the Sixth Amendment.'

"The specific target of Paul’s measure is a key section of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012....

"On December 31, 2011, with the signature of then-President Barack Obama, the writ of habeas corpus — a civil right so fundamental to Anglo-American common law history that it predates the Magna Carta — became voidable upon the command of the president of the United States. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel also became revocable at the will of the occupant of the White House....

"Americans would not need to worry about being held without charge if the president was not authorized in the same act to deploy the armed forces to round up 'suspects' and detain them indefinitely....One of the most noxious elements of the NDAA is that it places the American military at the disposal of the president for the apprehension, arrest, and detention of those suspected of posing a danger to the homeland....

"Under the provisions of Section 1021, the president is afforded the absolute power to arrest and detain citizens of the United States without their being informed of any criminal charges, without a trial on the merits of those charges, and without a scintilla of the due process safeguards protected by the Constitution of the United States....

"Senator Paul’s Sixth Amendment Preservation Act restores our nation’s constitutional commitment to individual liberty by repealing Section 1021."

Read more: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/26244-rand-paul-bill-would-repeal-indefinite-detention-provision-of-ndaa
'via Blog this'

Police, guards fund opposition to legal cannabis

Police and Prison Guard Groups Fight Marijuana Legalization in California - Lee Fang, The Intercept::

May 18, 2016 - "Roughly half of the money raised to oppose a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana in California is coming from police and prison guard groups, terrified that they might lose the revenue streams to which they have become so deeply addicted.....

"Opposition to the marijuana legalization initiative, slated to go before voters in November, has been organized by John Lovell, a longtime Sacramento lobbyist for police chiefs and prison guard supervisors. Lovell’s Coalition for Responsible Drug Policies, a committee he created to defeat the pot initiative, raised $60,000 during the first three months of the year, according to a disclosure filed earlier this month.

"The funds came from groups representing law enforcement, including the California Police Chiefs Association, the Riverside Sheriffs’ Association, the Los Angeles Police Protective League’s Issues PAC, and the California Correctional Supervisor’s Organization. Other donors include the California Teamsters union and the California Hospital Association, as well as Sam Action, an anti-marijuana advocacy group co-founded by former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., and former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum....

"Law enforcement officials in Minnesota, Washington, and other states that have debated relaxing the laws surrounding marijuana have said that they stand to lose money from reform. Police receive federal grants from the Justice Department to help fund drug enforcement efforts, including specific funding to focus on marijuana.

"Asset forfeiture is another way law enforcement agencies have come to rely on marijuana as a funding source. Police departments, through a process known as asset forfeiture, seize cash and property associated with drug busts, including raids relating to marijuana. The proceeds from the seizures are often distributed to law enforcement agencies. From 2002 to 2012, California agencies reaped $181.4 million from marijuana-related asset seizures. As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2014, pot legalization in Washington state led asset forfeiture proceeds to go up in smoke.

"Prison guard unions have also played a part in defending lucrative drug war policies. In California, the prison guard union helped finance the 'three strikes' ballot measure in 1994 that deeply increased the state prison population. In 2008, the California prison union provided funds to help defeat Proposition 5, a measure to create prison diversion programs for nonviolent offenders with drug problems....

"California is only the latest state in which law enforcement unions have led the opposition to ending marijuana prohibition across the country in recent years. During the 2014 election, Florida law enforcement officials successfully campaigned against a medical marijuana ballot measure by arguing that the initiative would promote a range of problems, from teenage use of the drug to respiratory disease."

Read more: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/18/ca-marijuana-measure/
'via Blog this'

Financial Review has lunch with Charles Koch

Political machine man: Lunch with Charles Koch | afr.com - Stephen Foley:

January 10, 2016 - "While Charles and his younger sibling, David, feature as boo-hiss villains in Democratic candidate speeches, their activities concern those of all political hues who fear the unchecked power of private wealth to influence the US electoral system. The Koch brothers have pushed for and used new freedoms such as those opened up by the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which removed limits on corporate political spending, to fundraise at large scale and in relative obscurity. Their network of organisations - a panoply of think tanks, campaign groups, voter registration and opposition research arms as well as political action committees - employs 1,200 people in 107 offices nationwide, about three and a half times the current staff of the Republican National Committee....

"Koch's staff have told him they expect to marshal close to $US900m from conservative donors. The money will be spent trying to influence this year's elections in favour of rightwing ideas; around a third of it on directly funding political campaigns against Democratic candidates.

"With the field crowded and voting still a way off, Koch has declined several times to endorse a Republican primary candidate....  I ask about the rhetorical turn the race has taken when it comes to dealing with Islamist terror, and about Trump's assertion that the US could require all Muslims in the country to register with the government. 'Well, then you destroy our free society,' Koch says of the idea. 'Who is it that said, "If you want to defend your liberty, the first thing you've got to do is defend the liberty of people you like the least"?'

"He then expounds on the war on terror. 'We have been doing this for a dozen years. We invaded Afghanistan. We invaded Iraq. Has that made us safer? Has that made the world safer? It seems like we're more worried about it now than we were then, so we need to examine these strategies'....

"Although Koch now calls himself a 'classical liberal' - citing William Gladstone as a political hero for opposing Corn Law trade tariffs and political patronage in 19th-century Britain - today's libertarian Republicans and leftish Democrats may find intriguing common causes. The Kochs have also financed efforts - to roll back harsh sentencing laws, reduce the US's prison population (the highest in the world) and make it easier for felons to be reintegrated into society - more commonly associated with Democrats.

"Where the Kochs and the left are never likely to see eye to eye is on the environment. Over lunch, Koch positions himself not as a denier of climate change but rather as sceptical that it justifies drastic government intervention. 'Over the past 135 years, the ground temperature has warmed - there's some debate on this - around eight-tenths of a degree centigrade. In the atmosphere [the temperature change] has been slightly less, but not enough to argue much about. A big driver is most likely man-generated CO2, but what we see is that this increase is much less than has been projected. So, the indications are that the temperature isn't as sensitive to increases in CO2 concentration as was thought. I don't see the evidence that there's an immediate catastrophe or even one in the future.'

"The level of climate change, says Koch, does not justify penalising the use of cheap fossil fuels or subsidising alternative energy companies. Tax breaks and other incentives to use solar panels, he explains, cut the cost of energy for homeowners who can afford to install them, at the expense of higher bills for the rest. 'It's the poor people subsidising the rich people, which is what happens with this corporate welfare everywhere'....

"Through our conversation, there seems to be no issue to which smaller government, freer markets and unfettered competition is not the solution. "Our worst example in this country is the way we've treated Native Americans," he says at one point. "A great portion of the property of the American Indians is held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They are not allowed to control their own." Citing the high rate of unemployment among Native Americans, he says, "This is what this whole philosophy of control and dependency does. How do you have a life of meaning? It's hopeless. So, they're a bunch of alcoholics. Well, no kidding."

Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/world/political-machine-man-lunch-with-charles-koch-20160110-gm2nlm
'via Blog this'

Kochs win praise for criminal justice reform efforts

Democrats Fight — With Each Other — Over The Kochs - BuzzFeed News - Evan McMorris-Santoro:

July 17, 2015 - "Democrats are defending the efforts of the Koch brothers. And they’re defending the Kochs from attacks by other Democrats, who say the brothers’ criminal justice work is just a 'scam'....

"It’s a weird turn of events, but the unsurprising conclusion to the drug war collision course: progressives and libertarians, led by the Kochs, agree that the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and ’90s need to change, from mandatory-minimum sentencing to the use of criminal records in hiring. President Obama even praised the Kochs this week, a week in which he commuted the life sentences of 46 drug offenders and advocates say big changes could really be coming....

 "Beyond the politics, many progressive-leaning advocates inside the criminal justice movement actually don’t think the Koch brothers ... are trying to pull a fast one with their support for the cause. Mark Holden, Koch Industries’ general counsel, can talk for hours about the minutiae of the criminal justice system and the ways it should be changed to be fairer to the poor and minorities. Liberal advocates often single him out as a powerful ally.

"Outside of the legislative fight, the Kochs have won praise from the left for instituting changes within Koch-owned companies [that] advocates on the left have long said would mitigate the impact a conviction could have on felons long after they leave prison. In April, Koch Industries stopped asking prospective employees about their criminal history on applications.... Holden said the banning the box was an effort to make hiring at Koch Industries a model. 'We removed the box from our application because we are focused on finding the best candidates for employment based on who they are now and their entire person,' he told BuzzFeed News....

"The recent success of the criminal justice advocates can be traced back almost entirely to Koch-backed efforts in red states like Texas and Georgia to reduce nonviolent drug sentences and release prisoners into less expensive community outreach programs and supervised probation. That effort linked libertarians, evangelicals and social justice progressives....

"In Washington, progressive lawmakers who had pushed for changes to the criminal justice system as it relates to the drug war for years found themselves with Republican allies as the libertarian wing of the Tea Party movement took power. Those Republicans quickly became the most vocal supporters of criminal justice legislation on Capitol Hill, joining with progressive Democrats to support bills aimed at eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and other priorities....

"The two sides formally combined their national efforts after Republicans won the Senate in 2014. Criminal justice was on the short list of agenda items the White House said could be possible in the new political reality, and it wasn’t long before the Kochs and CAP linked up to to create the high-profile Coalition For Public Safety, which promised to pour millions into a push to pass new criminal justice laws.

"Koch-funded advocates and their allies are a regular part of the coalition to make bipartisan criminal justice legislation happen before the end of the year. That group has the support of the White House, which has regularly hosted meetings between criminal justice advocates, including Koch-backed advocates, and administration officials".

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/democrats-fight-with-each-other-over-the-kochs
'via Blog this'

Republicans to push criminal justice reform in 2015

The Growing Republican Divide on Criminal Justice Reform | TIME - Alex Altman:

December 29, 2014 - "Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and Republican Party donor, says he will make criminal justice reform a major cause in 2015. 'Over the next year, we are going to be pushing the issues key to this, which need a lot of work in this country,' Koch said in an interview with the Wichita Eagle.

"Koch is a big spender — and something of a bogeyman among many liberals — so this made news. The 'conservative mega-donor,' a Politico story blared, 'is opening his wallet on an unexpected issue.'

"Except it shouldn’t be unexpected. Koch is a libertarian, and libertarians have a history of opposing policies, such as mandatory minimum sentencing, that have made the U.S. incarceration rate the highest in the world. What’s perhaps more surprising is how Republican politicians from other parts of the spectrum are beginning to embrace criminal justice reform as well.

"Virtually all of the likely 2016 Republican field supports some element of criminal-justice reform. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is the most visible and least surprising proponent; as a libertarian-leaning conservative, he has staked his candidacy on the idea that the GOP must adjust its policies as the composition of the electorate changes. But Paul is hardly the only 2016 hopeful to plant a flag on the issue. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor, has called for an end to the 'failed war on drugs' and signed legislation that sent some offenders to rehab instead of prison.

"Rick Perry, the conservative governor of Texas, has been among the nation’s top prison reformers, even winning a national award for his support of drug courts as an alternative to incarceration. Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, another Republican governor eyeing a 2016 bid, pushed legislation that would boost the state’s drug rehab program and make some nonviolent offenders eligible for early release.

"Conservatives in Congress also have an appetite for reform. Paul Ryan produced a white paper on poverty that includes proposals like giving judges sentencing flexibility for nonviolent offenders and letting some inmates earn time off their prison stays for successful participation in programs. Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah and a Tea Party favorite, was one of the original sponsors, with liberal senators Dick Durbin and Pat Leahy, of a bill called the Smarter Sentencing Act, which attempts to curtail the draconian sentencing that has left some 2.2 million Americans behind bars. Among the Republicans who have since signed on: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, another presidential hopeful."

Read more: http://time.com/3648638/republicans-police-reform/
'via Blog this'

Supreme Court orders California to release inmates - latimes.com

California inmates: Supreme Court orders California to release inmates - latimes.com - David G. Savage, May 23, 2011:

"The Supreme Court ordered California on Monday to release tens of thousands of its prisoners to relieve overcrowding, saying that 'needless suffering and death' had resulted from putting too many inmates into facilities that cannot hold them in decent conditions.

"Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, speaking for the majority, said California's prisons had 'fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements' because of overcrowding. As many as 200 prisoners may live in gymnasium, he said, and as many as 54 prisoners share a single toilet.

"Kennedy insisted that the state had no choice but to release more prisoners. The justices, however, agreed that California officials should be given more time to make the needed reductions.

In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia called the ruling 'staggering' and 'absurd.'"

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/sc-dc-0524-court-prisons-web-20110523,0,2337401.story