Michael Conahan, a former judge involved in a notorious “kids for cash” scandal in Pennsylvania, was among the nearly 1,500 people who were granted clemency last week by President Biden granted clemency to last week. The White House portrayed the mass clemency as a historic moment for justice. Conahan’s commutation only underscores how broken the presidential pardon and clemency process is, writes Washington Post columnist Heather Long, who covered the scandal as a reporter. The scheme — one of the worst corruption scandals in U.S. juvenile justice history — came to light in 2008 and 2009. Conahan and fellow judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. were accused of receiving cash kickbacks in exchange for helping to construct two for-profit juvenile detention facilities in Luzerne County and then sentencing 2,500 young people to those facilities to keep them full. They received more than $2.8 million.
To maximize the payout, they often gave kids the harshest possible sentence. Young people who were first-time offenders and probably should have received a warning or community service would end up locked up. Some were younger than 13. What the judges did caused tremendous harm to thousands of young people and their families. One young man died by suicide. Many youths became depressed and dropped out of high school. They were caught only because one distraught family contacted the Juvenile Law Center, a nonprofit legal aid group in Philadelphia. In an early example of data sleuthing, the center compared the numbers with those of the 66 other counties in Pennsylvania and realized something very wrong was occurring in Luzerne County. Half of these youngsters had no legal representation, and 60 percent were removed from their homes. That’s how the judges got away with it for so long: There was literally no one watching. Conahan was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison for racketeering conspiracy and Ciavarella to 28 years for racketeering, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the U.S., among other crimes. The White House said the pardons weren't case-by-case decisions. The Biden team set broad criteria, and Conahan matched them.