Unsettled juvie cases won’t be retried

WILKES-BARRE – Declaring that juvenile justice in Luzerne County has been “balanced and restored,” Berks County Senior Judge Arthur Grim on Monday morning ordered the last of unsettled juvenile cases tainted by the judicial corruption scandal “dismissed with prejudice.”

The order came at what was scheduled as a pre-trial hearing on a motion to dismiss most of 27 juvenile cases that were under consideration for retrial. After 90 minutes behind closed doors, Grim emerged with Luzerne County District Attorney Jackie Musto Carroll and Juvenile Law Center Legal Director Marsha Levick. Musto Carroll then announced she would not retry any of the juveniles.

“In my opinion, it’s the right thing to do,” Musto Carroll said, noting her office had conducted extensive reviews of cases that seemed eligible for retrial under tight rules set by the state Supreme Court.

Musto Carroll said one of her big concerns was that juveniles who are still in detention or treatment continue to get the help they need. Dismissing the cases means they are no longer in placement under the justice system, but Musto Carroll said arrangements have been made to have other agencies step in.

“The needs of these children are being met,” she said. “We are closing a chapter on our juvenile justice system that I think everyone will agree was the worst in our county’s history.”

Juveniles who still owe restitution will not have to pay the remainder of what they owe, Grim said, adding that the courts and attorneys will meet to work out other ways to fulfill restitution for victims. He also stressed victims will not be required to repay restitution they may have received.

The news was relief to Anthony Brennan, one of the juveniles leaving the building after court was adjourned. Brennan said he had been in three different placements for a year followed by three years of probation, and had managed to repay only $1,000 of $4,000 ordered by former Judge Mark Ciavarella when he and two other juveniles were caught breaking into an abandoned Jewish Community Center in Hazleton.

“I was the only one who did time,” Brennan said, “I guess because I was in trouble before.”

Brennan, 18, said he earned his high school equivalency diploma while in placement, and had been struggling to find and keep jobs despite a court order barring him from getting his driver’s license.

He and his mother said he had to rely on friends and relatives to get him to and from his jobs as he worked to repay the restitution. “The only thing I worried about for the last year was paying it off,” he said.

Brennan and his mother said the building had been damaged before the three juveniles broke in to play some basketball, and that the owners had admitted as much, but that Ciavarella ordered him to pay for all the damage anyway.

The retrials were being considered as a result of an Oct. 29 ruling by the state Supreme Court that vacated the convictions of an estimated 6,500 juveniles who appeared before Ciavarella from 2003 to 2008. That ruling was based on a report issued by Grim, who was specially appointed to review Ciavarella’s cases after Ciavarella and former Judge Michael Conahan were arrested last January.

The Supreme Court forbid retrial for any juvenile who appeared before Ciavarella without an attorney or if the juvenile was committed to the two private detention and treatment centers – PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care – at the hub of the judges’ scandal. Ciavarella and Conahan are accused of accepting $2.6 million from the developer and a former co-owner of the centers in exchange for rulings that helped the centers prosper.

The Supreme Court further limited retrials only to juveniles who are currently incarcerated, on probation or still owe fines or restitution.

After review, Musto Carroll came up with an initial list of about 100 who seemed to meet the criteria. Further research whittled that down to about 50, then to 27. Grim was scheduled to begin retrials on five of those today.

Musto Carroll said the decision to drop all efforts at retrial was not a case of changing her mind, but simply the result of the extensive reviews.

The Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia-based advocacy group that has been pushing for dismissal of the cases, also reviewed the cases.

After Musto Carroll announced the decision to forego all retrials, Levick praised the District Attorney’s Office, Grim, other county departments involved and the parents and children for the work and patience in resolving the matter.

She noted it has been one year almost to the day since Ciavarella was first charged, then detailed the process by which the decision to dismiss all cases was reached.

“One of the incredible lessons we learned was the importance of transparency,” Levick said as she noted the initial list of potential retrials suggested by Musto Carroll was “fraught from the beginning,” and that research showed that even when it was trimmed to 27, all but five of those had spent at least several weeks in the detention facilities, disqualifying them under the Supreme Court rules.

Three of the remaining five, she added, “had their adjudication hearings off the record,” meaning there were no transcripts to review, or even any official proof the juveniles had pleaded guilty.

Levick called the decision to dismiss all cases “stunning and historic. ... I would say the scales have been righted. This is a community that can now come together.

Scrutiny of the cases has shown that more than half of the children who appeared before Ciavarella had no attorney, and that they often got no opportunity to speak or testify in any way.

The JLC is still involved in several civil suits against the judges. Grim’s order, Levick added, “restored the meaning of the Juvenile Act and the value of the Constitution.”

Grim called the whole situation “tragic,” and praised Musto Carroll and other county officials for all their work. “This could have taken years instead of 11 months and 17 days,” he said, then added with a smile, “but who’s counting?”

Grim acknowledged there is still a lot of work to do, particularly in expunging the records of thousands of juveniles, but said: “The news is good, the news is good.

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Any restitution still owed is voided

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