And Justice For All

Since it's turned out to be one of those kinds of days...

Allow me to turn your attention to this piece of appalling news out of Pennsylvania: Last week two judges plead guilty to fraud, having accepted over two-and-a-half million dollars in kickbacks for sentencing juvenile offenders to privately run detention centers.

"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 violated," attorney Michael Cefalo said in a statement Friday.

In the plea agreement, Ciavarella and Conahan admitted they "abused their position ... by secretly deriving more than 2,600,000 (dollars) in income ... in exchange for official actions."

Those actions included "entering into agreements guaranteeing placement of juvenile offenders with PA Child Care, LLC (and) facilitating the construction of juvenile detention facilities."

Among the judges' alleged offenses: "14-year-old ... Bernadine [Wallace] was charged with terroristic threats after getting into an argument on MySpace. ...The teenager was not advised of her right to an attorney and was pressured to plead guilty. She was taken from Ciavarella's courtroom in shackles and spent time in PA Child Care and at a youth wilderness camp."

And "a youth detained for nine months for stealing a four-dollar jar of spices, and a 13-year-old who was sent to boot camp for several weekends for exploring an abandoned building."

For fuck's sake, that is a vile and repellent abuse of power.