Luzerne County Judges

adult offenders

November 3, 2009

Sentence reductions possible

Anyone convicted as juvie by Ciavarella could have had that crime taken into account when sentenced as adult.

By Terrie Morgan-Besecker tmorgan@timesleader.com
Law & Order Reporter
Terrie Morgan-Besecker on Facebook   |   @TLTerrieMorgan on Twitter

WILKES-BARRE – In light of Thursday’s state Supreme Court ruling that vacated the convictions of thousands of juveniles, Luzerne County officials are debating how to go about identifying adult offenders who might be eligible for a reduced sentence.

Chief Public Defender Basil Russin on Monday said some adult offenders could see their sentences reduced if crimes they committed as juveniles were counted in their prior record score, which is used to calculate the sentencing range for adult crimes.

Identifying those people is a monumental task that involves reviewing thousands of records, Russin said. His office is now formulating a plan on how to address the matter.

But President Judge Chester Muroski questioned whether that obligation should fall upon the county at all.

“Mr. Russin may be assuming a task he doesn’t have to,” Muroski said. “Is it his responsibility ... or is it the offender’s responsibility to notify the sentencing judge that his juvenile adjudication should not have been considered?”

The issue stems from the Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned the convictions of an estimated 6,500 juveniles who appeared before former Judge Mark Ciavarella from 2003 to 2008 based on its findings that the proceedings were tainted.

The ruling means that, legally, those convictions no longer exist. If the conviction was counted in calculating the sentence for a crime committed as an adult, the defendant could seek a sentence reduction, Russin said.

Russin said he does not believe the onus should be on the defendant to raise the issue. In many instances the defendant may not know he or she has the right to challenge their sentence, he said. His office represents defendants through the appeals phase, thus it has an obligation to identify those who might be impacted, he said.

“Isn’t that the problem we had with the juveniles? They didn’t know any better,” Russin said. “If you have a guy sent to a prison far away who has no contact with the outside world, is he going to know he got an increased sentenced because of an unlawful juvenile conviction? I think it’s incumbent upon the person who represented him to bring it up.”

Russin said his office would only work to identify cases in which it represented the defendant. If an offender was represented by private counsel, it would be up to the private counsel to notify the person.

Russin said does not know how many cases might be impacted, but he “guessed” it could be hundreds. Once the cases are identified his office would have to file a petition in county court seeking a new sentencing hearing.

That’s a secondary issue at this point. Right now he’s trying to figure out how to go about identifying those who might be eligible for the relief.

Russin said he could cross check names of all juveniles whose convictions were vacated against adult court records, but even that would be time consuming, given that there are more than 6,000 cases.

The inquiry wouldn’t end there, though, as someone would have to go into the flagged records to review the pre-sentence investigation report to determine if the juvenile record was counted in the prior record score. A juvenile conviction is considered only if the juvenile was age 14 or older and the offense was a felony or serious misdemeanor.

“There is an awful lot of work to be done,” Russin said.

He said he doesn’t know how his office, which is already overburdened, will handle the additional workload. He said he hopes some state or other funding will made available to hire additional staff.

Muroski said he’s not sure if any outside funding would be available.

The county’s salary board in July approved five new positions for the District Attorney’s Office to focus exclusively on juvenile cases that were under review. The positions were contingent upon the county receiving a $250,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

The board in April also created a temporary clerk position to help process juvenile files. The state court system was supposed to pay for that position, but so far has not reimbursed the county, Muroski said.

Terrie Morgan-Besecker, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 570-829-7179.

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