Posted: Wednesday, 28 January 2009 11:50AM
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied
Steve Corbett Reporting
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Luzerne County President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and county senior Judge Michael T. Conahan face a terrifying future. Many people would panic and fall apart if they knew they were headed to a federal prison for seven years.
But I don’t know how these two disgraced jurists are handling the news. All I know is that the latest Luzerne County public corruption probe has finally exploded in a public spectacle unlike any ever seen in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Corruption isn’t new in hard coal country. Crooks have held elected office in the past.
Even the late Dan Flood, our legendary member of Congress, resigned in disgrace.
But, if what federal law enforcement officials say is true, Ciavarella and Conahan are champion criminals with a pathological drive to hurt rather than help.
Federal officials say that both men have agreed to plead guilty and serve lengthy prison terms.
An FBI agent at Monday’s press conference said the men “sold their oath of office to the highest bidder.”
Prosecutors accuse the judges of accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks in a scheme to funnel millions of county dollars and direct juvenile prisoners to prison cells in which the judges held secret financial interests.
Then the judges hid their profits in a committed and continuing effort to defraud the government, according to the two-count criminal presentment.
If what the presentment says is true, these men should serve far more than seven years behind bars.
As of now, though, we don’t know if the plea agreements will even go through. Ciavarella’s lawyer, Al Flora Jr., has taken issue with some of what the government alleges – a strange turn of events after the big show press conference that took place Monday.
Didn’t Ciavarella know what was coming? Hadn’t he already signed off on the charges? Is he saying that he didn’t know what the charges contained? Is he accusing the government of putting in writing accusations that he did not agree to admit?
We need Ciavarella and Conahan in a federal courtroom as soon as possible.
We need them to admit guilt, get sentenced and go directly to jail or ask the government to cancel the deals and head to trial.
Frankly, I’d rather they went to trial.
I want to hear all the grisly details. I want to see the faces of the witnesses. I want to watch these men squirm behind a defense table. I want justice.
Most people would likely rather see Ciavarella and Conahan go to trial.
Pleas are not transparent.
We don’t even know if Ciavarella and Conahan are cooperating in what prosecutors call an ongoing criminal investigation into public corruption.
I asked U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson that very question during the press conference, but he refused to provide an answer.
Are Ciavarella and Conahan cooperating or aren’t they? How could the government agree to anything without first demanding full cooperation from the defendants? Do the feds simply not need them anymore?
The government owes the people the whole truth.
Carlson calls the plea agreements the first “development” in an ongoing case that has taken years to finally blossom. A development means that more will unfold. What cannot be forgotten, though, is that the people who depend on the system for life and death decisions should be treated fairly.
But the people lose until Ciavarella and Conahan are either sentenced on their guilty pleas or go to trial and are found guilty or acquitted.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
The feds must move with diligence. But the feds must also move swiftly.
The people have paid long enough for the sins of the corrupt.
Now it time for the criminals to pay.
Now is the time for true justice to reign.
Now is the time for the people to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
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