A SECOND SMART LA TIMES EDITORIAL ABOUT THE LA COUNTY FOSTER CARE SYSTEM AND THE POLITICAL WINDS THAT DRIVE IT
In the second LA Times editorial this week about DCFS and the LA County Board of Supervisors who are micromanaging it, the Times notes that the Sups have fired one head of DCFS this year and run through two other interim directors, Now they have hired yet one more interim director, County Welfare Chief, Philip Browning
Let us hope that Browning can figure out what is going so wrong in DCFS’s culture that that allows the bad decisions that have led to kids’ deaths, and what is beginning to go right in the department, that needs more nurturing.
And keep those clear-eyed editorials coming.
SENTENCING THE JUDGE IN THE PENNSYLVANIA KIDS FOR CASH CASE
The PA judge who took high ticket bribes in return for sending kids to certain juvenile incarceration facilities, whether thee deserved be locked up or not, is finally about to be sentenced. Michael Rubinkam of the AP has the story. Here’s how it opens.
As a juvenile court judge, Mark Ciavarella Jr. routinely deprived kids of some of their most basic constitutional rights. Their right to a lawyer. Their right to understand the charges against them. Their right to a fair, impartial hearing.
Ciavarella enjoyed all of those protections while defending himself against federal charges that he took millions of dollars in kickbacks while sending youth offenders to privately owned detention centers. Not that it changed the outcome.
Convicted in one of the biggest courtroom scandals in U.S. history, the disgraced former judge could face more than a decade in prison when he is sentenced in Scranton on Thursday.
“I hope he gets sent away so he can see what he put others through, see what he made kids go through,” said Brian Larkin, 19, who once appeared in Ciavarella’s courtroom.
The denouement of the “kids for cash” case comes more than two-and-a-half years after Ciavarella and a second Luzerne County judge, Michael Conahan, were charged with orchestrating a scheme to enrich themselves by stocking for-profit detention centers with young offenders. Conahan pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing….
FLA TOUGHENS LAWS AGAINST FELONS—AND HARMS PUBLIC SAFETY RATHER THAN THAN HELPING IT
Steve Bousquet at the St. Petersburg Times reports on a new study in Florida. The study found found felons who successfully get their rights back tend to stay out of prison. But such pesky facts have not fazed FLA legislators who have recently made it harder for a felon to regain these rights.
Here’s a clip from the story:
….a new report by the Florida Parole Commission shows that a released felon in Florida whose civil rights are restored is much less likely to commit a new crime than others in the overall population of released prisoners.
The report, quietly delivered to officials a few weeks ago, has not been discussed publicly.
The agency studied 31,000 cases over a two-year period in 2009 and 2010 and found that about 11 percent of people whose civil rights were restored ended up back in custody.
The overall re-offense rate in the state is three times higher — 33 percent — according to the Department of Corrections.
“This report shows clemency is working very well, as 89 percent of convicted felons granted a second chance have not re-offended,” said Reggie Garcia, a Tallahassee lawyer who has helped felons navigate the complicated clemency process for the past 17 years….
The NY Times’ Adam Lipdak writes about a man named Edmond Demiraj who risked his own and his family’s lives to inform on an Albanian mobster in return for legal immigration status for his wife and children. But the feds went back on the deal.
Here’s a clip from the story’s center:
…Mr. Bedini was allowed to post bail and promptly fled to Albania. With their witness no longer of value to them, federal authorities deported Mr. Demiraj, also to Albania.
Mr. Bedini was waiting. He kidnapped, beat and shot Mr. Demiraj, the bullet just missing his kidneys.
Mr. Bedini also went after members of Mr. Demiraj’s family, kidnapping two of his nieces and forcing them into prostitution in Italy. “This was payback to your Uncle Edmond for when I was in the United States,” he said as he beat the women, who were 19 and 21.
This lurid narrative is set out in a recent federal appeals court decision and related court documents. The ruling, issued in January, contained good news: Mr. Demiraj survived the shooting, and his nieces escaped thanks to, as a dissenting judge put it, “sheer luck and a kind taxi driver.”
Mr. Demiraj and his nieces are now lawfully in the United States. He owns a small painting company near Houston. But the decision in January also brought bad news for Mr. Demiraj. It ordered the deportation of his wife, Rodina, and teenage son, Rediol, who have both lived in the United States since they entered the country unlawfully in 2000. (The two youngest Demiraj children were born in the United States.)
The idea that members of his family will be forced to return to Albania terrifies Mr. Demiraj….