All right. Maybe it's unseemly for me to be pleased when someone is sentenced to 28 years in prison, which for a guy who's 61 is effectively a life sentence.
But maybe not too unseemly when it's Mark Ciavarella, Jr.
That's the guy was formerly, and formally but only nominally, the Honorable Mark Ciavarella, Jr. You know, the Juvenile Court Judge felon who took bribes and kickbacks to deprive kids of fair hearings and counsel and then send them off to juvenile detention centers for the most trivial of offenses. He made millions from the scheme.
And now he's got a 28 year sentence.
I complain here about judges who care more about the next election (or appointment) than about enforcing the rules. I complain about judges who are prosecutors in disguise (and sometimes it's not much of a disguise.
Ciavarella wasn't like that. Plain and simple, he was a crook. He used his office to line his pockets at the expense of kids. He violated the rules and the law with something very close to impunity. He ruined lives. Thousands of them. Abused his office. Betrayed the public trust.
Maybe it's unseemly of me. But I don't represent Ciavarella. In this case, I'm just a citizen.
28 years seems about right.
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And he deserves every bit of it. All too often the system is lenient on scum like this, persons who serve in positions of trust who ruin others' lives for their financial gain. There's another recently retired judge here in northeast Ohio whom many have suspected of such tactics.
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