Former Pennsylvania Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. has been sentenced to 28 years in jail for taking $1 million in bribes from juvenile detention centers in order to help fill their cells with children. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has since been forced to toss out 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, because he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Now that the corrupt judge has been locked up, people are asking — was this an isolated incident of “Kids for Cash” or are there more just like him who have made similar deals with prisons across the United States? The fact that this sort of bribery would even be proposed strongly suggests a much broader problem.

With the proliferation of news about rampant corruption in the U.S. justice system, this one incident may just be the proverbial tip of the monstrous iceberg.

Source:

TimesLeader.com