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An order made by Luzerne County’s President Judge Chester Muroski on Wednesday could spell a complete rejection and overhaul of the county’s probation program.

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Concerned that county judges haven’t had control over the incarceration conditions of the inmates they’d sentenced, Muroski ordered that all such orders now must be signed by the sentencing judge. At the court’s next en banc meeting on Tuesday, he plans to call for a review of the process and consider returning to the Luzerne County Correctional Facility inmates who had been transferred without the sentencing judge’s signature.

The order came in response, he said, to judges’ inquiries as to whether he, as the president judge, would continue the practice of signing orders such as transfers, furloughs and petitions.

“I did a determination of what they wanted me to sign, and when I found out what they wanted me to sign, I became concerned because I didn’t see any participation by the sentencing judge,” he said.

It’s “common sense,” he said, that the “sentencing judge should have complete control over anyone that he has incarcerated who hasn’t reached their minimum.”

Though he hadn’t seen the previous order and was unsure who created it or how long it had been in existence, he said it was “apparently so” that the previous president judge, Mark Ciavarella, had been signing the orders.

Of particular concern are transfers to the Crossing Over halfway house run by Jim Casey, who said he is being sent what he felt is a disproportionately high number of offenders who are “the hardest cases to house, the hardest cases to employ.” And even though his facility costs less than half as much per day as the LCCF, he said he’s been unable to fill his 40-some beds.

“We’re being handpicked problems, which is OK. They’re not problems, they’re people,” he said. Ciavarella has been signing the transfers to his facility since June, he said. “I think he has the option of going to the sentencing judge, but the way it was explained to me it’s more expedient to send it one judge,” he said.

That situation concerned Muroski. “I have no idea how the program is being administered. I have no idea who is being considered for the program, and these are things we need to know,” he said. “If high risk individuals are being sent to Mr. Casey’s program, that is grave concern to me right now and that will hasten what review we are conducting. … That kind of concern expressed by him may even cause us to have everybody transferred back to LCCF until we review them.”

He hoped statistics would be available for Tuesday’s en banc meeting about how many inmates transferred to probationary programs had re-entered the criminal justice system after their release.

According to the county’s procedures, convicts may apply for transfer 30 days before they have served half their minimum sentence, county prison treatment coordinator Jen Lombardo said. The applicants are then screened for behavior and willingness to complete treatment, she said. “Our warden would sign off on that if they met those guidelines first,” she said.

The application is then forwarded to the county’s adult probation program, where the applicant receives a background check and evaluation on compliance with the program before a recommendation goes to a judge, she said. If the judge approves the transfer, it is processed in the prison’s records department and the applicant is transferred, she said.

It’s unlikely, she said, that the signature on the transfer order would be crosschecked with that of the sentencing. “If we get an order from a judge, we don’t question any judge. If we get an order from the courts, we follow orders,” she said.

Sam Hyder, the county’s deputy warden, said the president judge signing all such orders “makes no sense to me,” but said it was all done during the watch of former Warden Gene Fischi and that he had no knowledge of it.

Beyond the question of how transfers are approved is which inmates get recommended, Muroski said. “There should be some systematic determination of qualification standards to make sure that individuals who may be part of it be considered. I don’t know how people are put on a list. How is it done? Apparently it’s done by people at the correctional facility,” he said.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.