Testimony: Ciavarella’s ways accepted

PLAINS TWP. – Prosecutors, public defenders and probation officers took turns Monday painting a picture of a Luzerne County juvenile justice system in which cases were rushed, attorneys unprepared, records incomplete and suspect procedures accepted as the norm.

It was a court, most said, where no one questioned the judge.

Amid it all, in a marathon session of the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice, a probation officer confirmed a rumor circulating for months. Tom Lavan testified he was advised by former chief probation officer Sandra Brulo that he had to keep the private PA Child Care detention center full.

That facility is at the heart of the corruption scandal that brought charges against two county judges, a lawyer who co-owned it, the developer who built it and Brulo.

Lavan’s testimony came nearly 10 hours after the 9 a.m. opening of the hearings at the Best Western East Mountain Inn in Plains Township. Several administrators from Hazleton Area School District started the day, but the tougher questions were posed to prosecutors and public defendants who had practiced before former juvenile court Judge Mark Ciavarella, accused of taking money in exchange for rulings that profited PA Child Care.

“I think for a lot of years this was looked upon as kiddie court,” public defender Virginia Crowley said. Juvenile court was a place where district attorneys went for training “until they made the big show.” Crowley had worked as an assistant district attorney before joining the Public Defender’s Office.

Former Public Defender Jonathan Ursiak told the commission he often received information on juveniles the day of a trial, found cases in which they had been placed in facilities with no record of when the placement began, saw no written records of plea agreements hammered out before hearings, and had heard stories of private attorneys telling families it would be a waste of money to have them defend their children before Ciavarella.

“I felt the cards were stacked against my client, and me,” Ursiak said when discussing disposition hearings at which Ciavarella sentenced juveniles. Ursiak said he suspected many defense attorneys felt the same way.

He said that when he started handling juvenile cases in 2007, he was concerned about the number of defendants appearing without attorneys, and voiced those concerns to Chief Public Defender Basil Russin. “His comment to me was ‘Focus on the people you represent, do the best job you can.’ ”

Commission members frequently raised questions about fines court, which involves youths referred to probation because they failed to pay fines levied by a magistrate. Commission member John Uhler quoted from a transcript involving an 11-year-old boy who appeared before Ciavarella in 2004. The youth had been fined $488.50 for citations for harassment and disorderly conduct.

“Very good. He’s remanded. He can stay there till he pays the fines,” Ciavarella said. “Put the cuffs on him and get him out of here.”

Asked if Ciavarella ever considered alternatives, such as community service, probation officer Theresa Kline responded “not to my knowledge.”

Former probation administrator Paul McGarry said he had questioned the logic of fines court, but it was on financial grounds, not philosophic ones. “It didn’t make any sense for us to try to collect $400 and place someone in a facility that cost $200 a day.”

Those who testified repeatedly said they often did not question Ciavarella’s behavior on the bench because it was so widely accepted by the law enforcement people involved.

Former assistant district attorney Tom Killino said he was surprised at how quickly things were handled when he was assigned to juvenile court in 2005, with up to 30 cases heard in a single morning, but that he took his cue from the veteran attorneys around him.

“I came into a very fast-paced environment and observed my colleagues handle that environment,” and accepted it as the way things were done. He said he was told by his supervisors not to question Ciavarella’s procedures and rulings. The policy was generally “to get a plea to the highest charge.”

“To be very frank,” Killino said, juvenile court “didn’t seem to be taken very seriously by the persons involved.”

While the testimony painted a now-familiar picture of a judge hastily doling out stern justice and having juveniles taken out of court in shackles, a supervisor in the probation department defended her employee’s actions, and their apparent failure to raise concerns about Ciavarella.

Angela Zera noted many now paint Ciavarella as a “monster” and ask why no one saw what was going on. But there’s more to the picture, she insisted.

“The big question is ‘Why didn’t we know?’ We didn’t see the man you are describing. The man you are describing as a monster took the time to console parents at sidebar. He went to see kids graduate. He helped kids get into college,” Zera said.

Prosecutors and public defenders testified they often lacked sufficient time or resources to more fully review cases before hearings, but Crowley noted it was worse when she switched to the defense side. While the district attorney can ask police to investigate and has access to crime labs and expert witnesses, the public defender was often on his or her own.

But Killino said district attorneys were often in the dark. “We try to get as much information as possible,” he said, but it wasn’t always available.

“It wasn’t part of our purview to know that information. … There was a reason we were sectioned off from that; what that reason was I don’t know.”