Intellectual Property Law

The Face of Evil May Be Behind The Judge?s Bench

By Lee.Gesmer

“one may smile, and smile, and be a villain”
Hamlet Act 1, scene 5

?The thing to fear is not the law, but the judge?
Russian Proverb

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I may be naive, but after 30 years as a practicing lawyer when I appear before a judge I assume that she will decide the issue before her objectively and based on the law. And, where the law is unclear, as it so often is, with basic principles of fairness. I know that history is replete with judges who are corrupt, are open to bribery or who serve special interests. We often read of judges who are sanctioned or prosecuted for misconduct. Just because a judge dons a robe doesn’t mean she is immune from the foibles that afflict us all.

Nevertheless I was more than a little surprised to read about this kickback scheme in the February 13, 2009 New York Times. Quoting excerpts from the article:

[O]n Thursday . . . judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, [judge] Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care. . . .

While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.

Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim . . . was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003. Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention. . . .

If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar. They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months. . . .

Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.

Clients often ask me whether judges in Massachusetts are on the up-and-up. I answer that they are, and I truly believe that to be true. These clients are businesspeople, not alleged criminals. Yet, they approach the civil courts with a degree of suspicion and mistrust that is alarming. It’s not unusual for a client to imply that a judge might be “bought off” by someone on the other side of the case, of just ask openly if this happens.

Millions of people will hear about these two Pennsylvania judges, directly or indirectly. Their crimes will become part of the folk lore of the U.S. legal system. All judges are diminished by their actions, which will be remembered for decades.

Full post as published by Mass Law Blog on February 13, 2009 (boomark / email).