In two of the uglier moments in recent history for the state of Pennsylvania, the Luzerne County judicial scandal and the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal, there has been a common theme: The failure to protect children rises to the level of institutional crisis and Senior Judge John M. Cleland is called in to preside.
First, in what has since been described as a "court gone rogue," when two Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas judges accepted millions in kickbacks
in exchange for sending juveniles to two private detention centers, Cleland was called to chair a commission tasked with re-evaluating the state’s juvenile justice system.
