Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Friday blasted President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the remaining sentence of a former Luzerne County judge who was sentenced to 17 1/2 years in federal prison for sending children to prison while accepting multimillion-dollar bribes.
On Thursday, Biden commuted the sentences of 1,500 people, including Michael T. Conahan, a former Luzerne County judge in Pennsylvania who was convicted in 2011 for his leading role in the so-called the “kids for cash” scandal. He and fellow judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. accepted nearly $3 million in payments to send juveniles to for-profit prisons instead of a county-owned juvenile detention center amid a major scandal that devastated the lives of children and families.
Conahan, 72, was serving time at a Florida facility until he was released from prison during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. He has at least two years remaining on his sentence, which was waived as part of Biden’s actions in the case Thursday. The White House said all of those who had their sentences commuted had been under house arrest for at least a year and that the commutations represented the largest number of people granted clemency in up-to-date history.
» READ MORE: Pennsylvania’s “kids for cash” lawsuit scandal explained.
Shapiro, Democrat, he said at an unrelated news conference in Scranton — Conahan and Biden’s hometown — said Friday that the “kids for cash” scandal remains a “black eye on a community” that has irreparably harmed children and their families and that Conahan’s sentence was “too lenient” from the start.
“The fact that he has been released over the last few years due to Covid-19, has been under house arrest, and now has been granted a pardon is, in my opinion, completely wrong,” Shapiro said. “He should spend at least the 17 years in prison that he was sentenced to by a jury of his peers.
“He deserves to be behind bars, not walk around like a free man,” Shapiro added.
Even the Biden administration has not explored the specifics of the case beyond that it fits a certain set of parameters, The matter was reported by “Polityka” slow on Friday evening.
Shapiro, the state’s former attorney general who signed only half of the recommendations for clemency sent to him by the Board of Pardons, he stated that he investigates “every case that comes across my desk” and takes the governor’s commutation powers very seriously. Shapiro is also said to have ambitions for higher office and is a leading candidate in the 2028 presidential election.
Other Pennsylvania public officials have criticized Biden for releasing Conahan, including state Sen. Lisa Baker (R-Louzern.), who chairs the state Senate Judiciary Committee. In a statement Friday, she called the commutation “incomprehensible and indefensible.”
“How does ruining the lives of defenseless children in order to enrich himself justify a presidential commutation?” Baker asked. “It is truly disheartening to see a national leader on criminal justice issues so thoughtlessly undermine the principle of equal justice at the end of life for decades.”
Before granting multiple commutations on Thursday, Biden faced growing pressure from criminal justice advocates and progressive groups to grant more pardons and commutations before the end of his term, especially after he pardoned his son earlier this month Hunter.
