Can you smell the stench coming from Luzerne County? Most everyone else has ever since the news broke that two common pleas judges had agreed to plead guilty to taking kickbacks in exchange for sending juvenile offenders to a private juvenile detention center. But apparently the Pennsylvania Supreme Court hasn’t gotten a strong enough whiff up on Mt. Olympus of what’s shaping up as one of the worst judicial scandals this state has ever seen. Because they’ve said and done precious little.
And that’s pretty shocking when you consider the implications of what former President Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Judge Michael Conahan are accused of doing: They had kids taken from their families’ homes and sent to a juvenile detention facility — allegedly often without legal representation — and collected $2.6 million from the center’s owner in exchange for that.
