Author: JURIST – Paper Chase

[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Wednesday that strengthening human rights is an integral part of the rebuilding process in Haiti. In her remarks, Pillay mentioned the role that the inhumane living conditions may have had in the high casualty numbers resulting from the January 12 earthquake, placing blame on the Duvalier regime for those conditions. According to Pillay, the high number of casualties could have been predicted by the damage sustained in that country following a series of tropical storms in 2008. Pillay concluded her remarks with a call to action, saying:
As the Secretary-General noted we must help Haiti build back better. This also entails re-constructing and strengthening the national human rights protection systems through an effective and independent judiciary and a law enforcement apparatus respectful of human rights. A reliable National Human Rights Institution and a vigilant civil society must be empowered to be active partners in this endeavour.Pillay also urged the rule of law to be reestablished, citing fears that escaped prisoners would engage in violent criminal activities.Last week, US President Barack Obama signed a bill that will allow US citizens to claim donations to Haitian relief efforts as a deduction on their 2009 tax returns. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said that Haitian nationals present in the US before the earthquake will be given temporary protected status and will not be deported for the next 18 months, but Haitian refugees who arrive in the US illegally will be sent back to their home country. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake caused massive damage to property and infrastructure in Haiti, and the death toll has been estimated at 150,000.

[JURIST] The UK Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that executive orders allowing the government to freeze the assets of suspected terrorists are illegal. The five men involved in the court’s inaugural case argued that the government exceeded its power when the Treasury Department froze their assets without the approval of Parliament. They are accused by the British government of terrorism offenses, but have not been formally charged by any court. Justice Lord Hope said the orders, which can be extended indefinitely, are unduly burdensome on those accused of links to terrorism:
The consequences of the Orders that were made in this case are so drastic and so oppressive that we must be just as alert to see that the coercive action that the Treasury have taken really is within the powers that has given them. Even in the face of the threat of international terrorism, the safety of the people is not the supreme law. We must be just as careful to guard against unrestrained encroachments on personal liberty. The court found that the government exceeded its authority by allowing Treasury to freeze assets based solely on “reasonable suspicion” of involvement in terrorist activity, and by not providing for judicial review of the seizures.The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms a 2008 High Court ruling, which found that the Treasury Department may not freeze the assets of the five suspected terrorists without the approval of Parliament. The seizures were conducted pursuant to two Orders in Council, the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2006 and the Al Qaeda and Taliban (United Nations Measures] Order 2006. The orders implemented UN resolutions requiring UN member states to freeze the assets of people on a UN list of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban associates. The High Court rejected the orders because they were not subject to parliamentary scrutiny before they came into force.

[JURIST] A Yemeni government official said Wednesday that Yemen will build a rehabilitation center for Guantanamo Bay detainees. According to the anonymous official, Yemen will begin building once it receives funding for the $11 million project promised by the US. It is believed the rehabilitation center will be internationally financed and monitored. The project will be discussed on Wednesday at a meeting intended to garner international support in the wake of discovering that a Yemeni branch of al Qaeda trained the Nigerian man involved in the attempted Christmas day bombing.
The White House announced earlier this month that the US government will suspend transfers of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen based on security concerns. Most of the nearly 200 detainees remaining at Guantanamo are Yemeni, and many detainees have been transferred back to Yemen. Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the detention of Yemeni Guantanamo detainee Ghaleb Nassar Al-Bihani, ruling that he can remain in US custody, but, last month, the US government transferred six detainees back to Yemen. Also last month, a federal judge granted Yemeni detainee Saeed Hatim’s petition for habeas corpus, ordering his release.

[JURIST] China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) on Wednesday announced new anti-corruption rules in an effort to increase public confidence in the rule of law. The new regulations prohibit various activities including accepting bribes, having sex with litigants, intimidation, and intentionally prolonging court proceedings, with punishments ranging from demerits to removal. Chinese courts are under the control of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which announced plans earlier this month to increase its oversight of the families of government officials to control corruption. A communique released by the CPC’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which is in charge of detecting and preventing corruption in the CPC, ordered other CPC organs to carefully monitor officials to make sure they are not accepting bribes or receiving improper gifts.
China’s new judicial regulations come after the conviction of former SPC vice president Huang Songyou on bribery and embezzlement charges earlier this month. Huang is the highest-ranking judge to be charged with corruption since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Between 2005 and 2008, Huang allegedly embezzled 3.9 million yuan (about $574,000 USD) while serving as vice president of the SPC, and he allegedly embezzled 1.2 million yuan (about $175,000 USD) while serving as president of the Intermediate People’s Court of Zhanjiang in 1997.

[JURIST] The Russian Federation Council on Wednesday voted to ratify Protocol 14 to reform the European Convention of Human Rights. Council members voted 137-0 to pass the legislation, following earlier approval by the State Duma. The ratification process will be complete once Russian President Dmitry Medvedev approves the provision. Russia is the last member of the Council of Europe (COE) to ratify the protocol, which includes reforms to increase efficiency of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), such as filtering out inadmissible and repetitive cases. Russia was initially opposed to ratifying the protocol, which it claimed was politically motivated.
In June, the COE harshly criticized Russia’s judicial system and called for reform. In recent years, Russia has had the largest number of cases pending in the ECHR out of any COE member-state. In 2009, Russia had 32,600 cases pending, followed next by Turkey, which had 12,800 cases pending, and in 2008 Russia had 27,250 cases pending, followed next by Turkey, which had 11,100 cases pending. In 2008, Medvedev proposed that Russian courts become more transparent in order to restore faith in the justice system and prevent people from turning to the ECHR.

[JURIST] Bangladesh officials on Wednesday executed two of five former military officers sentenced to death for the 1975 assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s founding president, just hours after the country’s Supreme Court rejected their petitions for review. The five men, Syed Faruk Rahman, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Baziul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin, and Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, had appealed an earlier ruling that upheld their death sentences. Under Bangladesh law, a convict sentenced to death has the right to appeal the final judgment of his case and can petition the president for clemency. Three of the five men had already made clemency pleas, which were rejected last week by President Zillur Rahman. The remaining three are expected to be executed shortly.
Mujibur was killed at his home, along with his wife and three sons, in a military coup only four years after Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan in 1971. His daughter, the current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, was abroad at the time of the killings and had promised to make her father’s murder trial a priority of her administration when she was elected in 2008 to a second term in office.

[JURIST] Ugandan Principal Judge James Ogoola said Monday that the newly established War Crimes Division (WCD) of the High Court will seek to recruit foreign judges. Ogoola explained the need for foreign judges, citing the international nature of the cases. He said that foreign judges would improve both the quality of the WCD’s work and the public’s perception of the court. In June, WCD officials began reaching out to the areas most affected by the war with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the Acholi, Lango, Teso, and District of Adjumani regions of the country, seeking to lay the groundwork for future investigations.
Ogoola appointed three High Court Judges to serve on the WCD in July 2008 after the new division was created in May of that year. The WCD was formed specifically to try war crimes cases involving the LRA and will not hear other allegations of war crimes. Uganda’s government agreed to create the war crimes court in February 2008 during peace negotiations with the LRA. At the time, there was speculation that the WCD, which has the authority to try LRA leaders, was created to persuade the International Criminal Court (ICC) to drop its arrest warrants for LRA leaders. More than four years after the warrants were initially issued, the ICC is still seeking the arrest of LRA leader Joseph Kony and his deputies.

[JURIST] The Zimbabwe High Court ruled on Tuesday that it is not bound by the decision of the Southern Africa Development Community Tribunal (SADC Tribunal) that ordered the state to halt its controversial Land Reform Program. The court refused to register a SADC Tribunal ruling that prevents the state from acquiring land for the purpose of resettlement. Justice Bharat Patel believed that enforcing the ruling, which was in favor of white farmers whose land was taken over in the government’s farm redistribution program, would violate the Zimbabwean Constitution and would be against public policy. Patel believed that a decision in favor the SADC ruling would lead to the removal of the majority of the people that the government was trying to support through the redistribution program.
The Zimbabwe High Court had previously ruled that the SADC Tribunal is not superior to the courts of the individual SADC member countries. In December 2008, four white Zimbabwe farmers were charged with trespassing on state property for failing to vacate lands that the government seized for the land reform program, in open defiance of the November 2008 SADC Tribunal ruling. One of the farmers, Colin Cloete, filed suit to cause the government and attorney general to register the SADC ruling in the High Court Registry, a step necessary to enable its enforcement in the country. Government officials have expressed that the land reform program is necessary to correct past racial disparities that favored the white farmers, and the land reform program will continue.

[JURIST] Dozens of countries have illegally used secret detention facilities in their counter-terrorism efforts, according to a joint study issued Tuesday by four independent UN investigating groups. Information for the detailed study was collected through a questionnaire completed by 44 countries, as well several interviews with former detainees, their families, or their legal counsel. The study was particularly critical of actions taken by the US government since it began its “War on Terror” in 2001. The report also acknowledged that detainees are being secretly held in Algeria, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Russia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. The study stated:
International law clearly prohibits secret detention, which violates a number of human rights and humanitarian law norms that may not be derogated from under any circumstances. If secret detention constitutes enforced disappearances and is widely or systematically practiced, it may even amount to a crime against humanity. However … secret detention continues to be used in the name of countering terrorism around the world. The evidence gathered by the four experts for the present study clearly show that many States, referring to concerns relating to national security – often perceived or presented as unprecedented emergencies or threats – resort to secret detention.The study will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March, and will contain many recommendations, including making secret and unofficial detention strictly prohibited.The US has recently come under fire for its alleged use of secret detention facilities operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Last month, a Lithuanian parliamentary committee confirmed that the CIA had established two secret prisons for al Qaeda suspects, prompting a dispute that led to the resignation of the country’s foreign minister. On his third day in office last January, US President Barack Obama ordered the closure of all CIA secret prisons. The European Parliament voted in February 2007 to approve a report that condemned member states for cooperating with the CIA in operating secret prisons. In January 2007, the UK admitted knowledge of the CIA prison network, and then-president George W. Bush publicly acknowledged in September 2006 that these types of facilities existed. In June 2006, the Council of Europe released a report that 14 European countries collaborated with the CIA by taking an active or passive role in a “global spider’s web” of secret prisons and rendition flights. The existence of CIA prisons in Europe was first reported in November 2005.

[JURIST] Honduran Supreme Court President Jorge Rivera on Tuesday exonerated six military leaders accused of abuse of power for removing former president Manuel Zelaya from the country last June. Rivera found that the leaders did not intend to harm Zelaya and that his removal was necessary in order to preserve the peace. The Supreme Court had charged the commanders – head of the Joint Chiefs of the Armed Forces Romeo Vasquez, deputy head of the Joint Chiefs Venancio Cervantes, Inspector General Carlos Cuellar, Commandant of the Army Miguel Garcia, Commandant of the Navy Juan Rodriguez, and Commandant of the Air Force Luis Javier Prince – last week and ordered them to remain in the country until after the court had reached its decision. The charges were filed when prosecutors argued to the court that the military commanders violated the Honduran Constitution when they seized Zelaya and put him on a plane to Costa Rica. If they had been convicted, the military leaders could have faced up to six years in prison. Also Tuesday, the Honduran National Congress approved amnesty for both Zelaya and the military.
Tuesday’s ruling comes the day before Porfirio Lobo is scheduled to be sworn into office as president and Zelaya is expected to leave the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras. Last month, congress voted 111-14 not to reinstate Zelaya. This followed a non-binding advisory opinion from the Supreme Court that Zelaya could not legally return to office. Zelaya was ousted in June, following a judicial order asserting that he had broken Honduran law by attempting to conduct a controversial referendum on constitutional reform, contrary to a Supreme Court ruling. Zelaya, along with the US, the UN, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the European Union, maintain that his removal was a coup, while the interim government of Roberto Micheletti asserts that it was a lawful transition of power.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday that an Uzbek Guantanamo Bay detainee has been transferred to Switzerland. The detainee, whose identity will not be disclosed in order to facilitate his transition into life in Switzerland, was unanimously approved for transfer. The Swiss government agreed to accept the detainee for resettlement “on humanitarian grounds” after reassurances from the US that the man was not convicted of any crime and will not be a threat to public safety. The detainee was originally cleared for release in 2005, but could not return to Uzbekistan for fear of persecution.
The transfer to Switzerland is the latest in series of recent transfers that may demonstrate a renewed commitment from the Obama administration to close the military facility. Other detainees have recently been sent to Slovakia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Somaliland and Yemen. Earlier this month, however, the White House announced that further transfers of detainees to Yemen will be suspended due to security concerns. Last week, a presidential task force recommended that 35 Guantanamo detainees face trial or military commissions.

[JURIST] Former chief legal adviser to the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Sir Michael Wood told the Iraq Inquiry in a public hearing on Tuesday that he had advised the Foreign Ministry that the 2003 Iraq invasion was illegal. Woods testified that the invasion was “contrary to international law” because it was never authorized by the UN Security Council. Woods said that then-Foreign Ministry secretary Jack Straw rejected his advice that there was no legal basis for the invasion and that it was not supported by UN resolutions, including Resolution 1441. During the inquiry, Woods stated:
He took the view that I was being very dogmatic and that international law was pretty vague and that he wasn’t used to people taking such a firm position. When he had been at the Home Office … he had often been advised things were unlawful and he had gone ahead anyway and won in the courts.Last week, Wood released a written statement outlining the legal advice he had given to the foreign ministry. In his statement, Woods held that self defense requires an imminent attack, and Iraq’s regime change alone was not considered an actual or imminent threat. He went on to state that taking preemptive steps beyond self defense “had no basis in international law.”Earlier this month, the Iraq Inquiry released a 2002 letter from former UK attorney general Peter Goldsmith to former secretary of defense Geoffrey Hoon in which Goldsmith warned the Cabinet that the Iraq invasion was not supported by international law. The letter stated that Goldsmith was having “considerable difficulty” supporting a legal foundation for the Iraq invasion. Former UK prime minister Tony Blair is also facing criticism after the Inquiry released a letter from Goldsmith written to Blair in July 2002, warning Blair that the planned invasion of Iraq could be illegal. The letter laid out the reasons that Goldsmith believed the Iraq invasion might be illegal, including that an invasion could not be based on “regime change” alone. The existence of this letter will increase the difficulty for Blair to use a good-faith defense against charges that he knowingly led the country into an illegal invasion. Blair is scheduled to testify before the Inquiry this week.

[JURIST] Israel’s Knesset approved legislation on Monday to grant immunity to approximately 400 protesters involved in violent protests in connection with the 2005 removal of settlers in the Gaza Strip. The amnesty measure, which passed by a vote of 51-9, does not extend immunity to people who committed acts that endangered human life, but rather mainly affects approximately 400 teenagers who were charged with committing minor criminal infractions. This is the third general amnesty measure issued by Israel. The first was issued was in 1949, after the War of Independence, and the second was issued in 1967, after the Six-Day War.
The tenuous relations between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza have been under international scrutiny lately in light of more recent conflicts. Earlier this month, Israeli military officers cancelled a planned trip to the UK for fear they would be arrested on charges of war crimes for their involvement in last winter’s Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. In November, the UN adopted a resolution requiring independent investigations into Operation Cast Lead. According to the UN report, both Israel and Palestine committed war crimes.

[JURIST] The French parliamentary commission charged with investigating whether to enact laws banning the wearing of burqas or other “full veils” released its report Tuesday calling for a partial ban. The panel urged a ban that would apply in public facilities, including hospitals, schools, and public transportation, and to any individual attempting to receive public services. The panel also recommended that permanent residency and citizenship be denied to anyone displaying their adherence to “radical religious practices.” The commission did not recommend a total ban on the burqa because not all members agreed that such a move would be constitutional. The potential ban has received widespread support throughout France. Any legislation will probably not be voted on until after the French regional elections in March.
The commission began its hearings in July after being established a month earlier to address the issue. The panel has heard testimony from numerous experts, including anthropologist Dounia Bouzar, who suggested that a broad ban on covering one’s face to conceal identity is preferable to a law that singles out Muslims. Bouzar said that the recent popularity of the burqa amongst French Muslims was due to religious “gurus” who have misconstrued the teachings of Islam. The commission also heard from University of Nice philosopher Abdennour Bidar, who urged the commission to find a way to prevent the spread of the practice, though he was unsure whether this goal is best accomplished through legislation.

[JURIST]The Supreme Court of California ruled 5-2 Monday to authorize the use of “John Doe” arrest warrants, which replace an unknown suspect’s name with his or her DNA profile as the unique identifier. Prosecutors have increasingly been using these warrants as a means of satisfying the statute of limitations in criminal cases. California law, which echoes the language of the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, holds that prosecution for an offense commences when an arrest warrant is issued and “names or describes the defendant with the same degree of particularity required for complaint.” Focusing on the point of particularity, the court held that DNA profiles describe the suspect sufficiently for identification:
A warrant or complaint is an accusation against a person, and not against a name, andhen the name is unknown, the person may be identified with the best description available. … A genetic code describes a person with far greater precision than a physical description or a name. … For purposes of the Fourth Amendment, we conclude that the arrest warrant in question, which described the defendant by his 13-loci DNA profile and included an explanation that the profile had a random match probability such that there was essentially no chance of its being duplicated in the human population except in the case of genetically identical sibling, complied with the mandate of our federal Constitution that the person seized be described with particularity. … We likewise conclude the arrest warrant in question described the defendant with sufficient particularity to avoid a violation of the warrant particularity requirement of our state Constitution.Dissenting judge Carlos Moreno questioned the authenticity of John Doe warrants, claiming that the document was “a clever artifice intended solely to satisfy the statute of limitations until the identity of the perpetrator could be discovered.” Moreno stated that the warrant did not become effective until a fictitious name is replaced with the suspect’s real name, and at that point the statute of limitations has expired.The court’s ruling upheld the conviction of Paul Robinson on sexual assault charges. Evidence linking Robinson to the crime was discovered when his DNA was mistakenly collected and entered into the state’s DNA database, which matched his profile with that of the suspect profile in the John Doe warrant. DNA databases are a controversial issue. In May, a federal court upheld the constitutionality of mandatory DNA collection for all persons arrested or detained under federal authority. Judge Gregory Hollows of the US District Court for the Eastern District of California found that although the collection of DNA from those arrested on federal felony, sexual abuse, or violent crime charges does constitute a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, a person arrested based on probable cause “has a diminished expectation of privacy in his own identity.” Federal agencies began collecting DNA samples in 2008, although they had been authorized to do so since 2006.

[JURIST] A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside of the Forsenics Lab of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior’s Criminal Investigation Department on Tuesday, killing 21 people and injuring at least 80 others. The building collapsed shortly after the attack, which comes one day after a wave of attacks against several Baghdad hotels frequented by westerners. Some have suggested that the attacks might be in retaliation for Monday’s execution of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as “Chemical Ali.” Tuesday’s bombing has also aroused concerns about Iraq’s ability to ensure citizens’ safety in the run-up to the general election scheduled for next month. Iraq’s election legislation was just amended in December, causing the election to be pushed back from January 31 to February 27.
This is not the first time Iraqi ministries have been targeted by suicide bombers. Earlier this month, an Iraqi court sentenced 11 men to death for the August 19 bombing of the foreign and finance ministries in Baghdad that left close to 100 dead. Iraq is also seeking an investigation into the twin suicide bombings in Baghdad in October that killed at least 132 people. The bombings targeted the ministry of justice and the headquarters of the local provincial government ahead of an attempt by the Iraqi parliament to resolve a political stalemate to permit changes to the country’s election law. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari renewed calls in October for a formal UN inquiry to investigate those responsible for the bombings. Zebari asked the UN General Assembly and the Security Council to appoint a special envoy to probe possible sources that are targeting the country’s stability.

[JURIST] A Chinese court Tuesday sentenced four more people to death in connection with the July Xinjiang riots. The Intermediate People’s Court of Urumqi sentenced eight others to life in prison and one to the death penalty with a two-year reprieve, which is usually commuted to life in prison. To date, at least 26 people have received death sentences for their roles in the riots. In November, the Chinese government carried out the executions of nine others convicted in connection with the riots for murder, assault, arson, and robbery, after a review by the Supreme People’s Court upheld their sentences.
The actions of the Chinese government in the aftermath of the riots have been heavily criticized by Human Rights Watch (HRW). HRW has stated that the trials of the suspected rioters have been marred by infringements on due process and political considerations. Additionally, HRW reported that more than 40 Uighurs had disappeared while in the custody of Chinese authorities after large-scale sweeps by police. Residents of the region claim that the majority of the deaths were at the hands of Chinese authorities, but Chinese state media has reported that most of the deaths were due to protesters. The Chinese government has admitted that police were responsible for 12 of the deaths. The Muslim Uighur population is opposed to China’s restrictive bans on religious practice and says that the recent influx of Han Chinese has disenfranchised non-Chinese-speaking Uighurs. Violence broke out July 5, after Uighurs attacked Han Chinese during protests ignited by an attack at a factory in southern China that left two Uighurs dead.

[JURIST] The US Department of Transportation (DOT) announced Tuesday a federal ban on texting while driving for commercial truck and bus drivers. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that the prohibition will take effect immediately. Drivers who text while driving commercial vehicles may be subject to civil or criminal penalties of up to $2,750. The regulation, proposed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) applies to inter-state truck drivers as well as commercial bus or van drivers who carry more than eight passengers. FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said:
Our regulations will help prevent unsafe activity within the cab. … We want to make it crystal clear to operators and their employers that texting while driving is the type of unsafe activity that these regulations are intended to prohibit.The regulation will be publicly posted in the Federal Register on Thursday and appear in print on Friday.The DOT sponsored a summit on distracted driving in September to assess the distractions caused by devices and address issues to reduce accidents on the roadways. The federal ban for commercial drivers comes weeks after Illinois, Oregon, and New Hampshire joined the nearly 20 states and the federal government to prohibit texting while driving. In October, US President Barack Obama signed an executive order making it illegal for federal employees or government contractors to use text messaging while driving. In October, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released the results of a study that reported 5,800 deaths and nearly 600,000 injuries in traffic accidents in 2008 where driver distraction was indicated on the police report.

[JURIST] A Russian court on Monday awarded an HIV-positive woman custody of her younger brother. Svetlana Izambayeva sought custody rights in February after her mother’s death left the boy orphaned, but was denied by a city court because of her HIV status. On appeal, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan overruled the lower court decision. Human rights groups following the case had called the lower court decision unfair and alleged widespread discrimination against people with HIV in Russia.
Monday’s court decision could set an important precedent in Russia. As many HIV-positive Russians claim to experience discrimination from people who do not understand HIV/AIDS, the government and other groups continue to make an effort to raise awareness and educate the public. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), there are more than 900,000 people living with HIV in Russia. Efforts to alleviate discrimination also continue in other countries. Earlier this month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed HIV from its list of communicable diseases of public significance, ending a 22-year-old policy prohibiting people with HIV or AIDS from entering the country. In 2008, an Indian court awarded custody to an HIV-positive woman after her in-laws refused to turn over the child.

[JURIST] Luzerne County District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll agreed on Monday to drop efforts to retry 46 juveniles whose original convictions were overturned because they had been issued by a judge indicted on federal corruption charges for an alleged kickback scheme. In October, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned about 6,500 convictions handed down by former Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas president judge Mark Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, but gave prosecutors permission to seek retrial of more than 100 youths who were still under court supervision. Ciavarella, along with former president judge Michael Conahan, has been accused of accepting more than $2.6 million in kickbacks for sentencing teenagers to two private juvenile detention facilities in which they had a financial interest. The decision ends all efforts at retrying any of the convicted juveniles, who will now have their juvenile records cleared. The Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center issued a statement applauding the decision, indicating that “justice has finally been attained” for the juveniles.
Ciavarella and Conahan are awaiting trial after being indicted in September, following a withdrawal of the guilty pleas they entered in February. The plea withdrawal came after Judge Edwin Kosik of the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania rejected their plea agreements, finding that the men did not accept responsibility and that the prison sentences were too lenient. This prompted the two former judges to file a motion for their reinstatement. Kosik refused to reinstate the plea agreements, causing the former judges to withdraw their pleas and clearing the way for a trial. Robert Powell, the owner of PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care juvenile facilities has pleaded guilty to paying kickbacks to both Ciavarella and Conahan.