Earlier this week, President Biden broke the record for the largest one-day act of clemency, dishing out 39 pardons and commuting 1,499 sentences. Now, as journalists and citizens begin sifting through that massive pile, some troubling discoveries are coming to light -- perhaps none more disturbing than Biden's commutation of a sentence given to a Pennsylvania judge convicted of railroading children to prison in exchange for $2.1 million in kickbacks from the private prison's operator to himself and Judge Mark Ciaverella.
In a truly sinister scandal that came to be known by the nickname "Kids-for-Cash," Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan pled guilty to racketeering charges and was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison. By some estimates, the scheme affected more than 2,500 juveniles. In many cases, the minors were provided no defense counsel, and the crooked judges creatively applied laws in order to lengthen sentences. In a case handled by Ciaverella, a 15-year-old girl who created a MySpace page to mock her school's assistant principal had a 90-second, no-lawyer trial, and was sentenced to three months in confinement.
Sandy Fonzo is among those who are outraged by Biden's commutation of Conahan's sentence. Her son, a star wrestler with college scholarship prospects, was sentenced to confinement for his senior year on a minor drug paraphernalia charge. He emerged depressed and angry, and would late commit suicide. “I am shocked and I am hurt,” said Fonzo. "Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power.”
Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was among those rushing to condemn Biden's move. “I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania,” said Shapiro at a Friday event -- held, believe it or not, on "Biden Street" -- in the president's first hometown, Scranton. "[Conahan] deserves to be behind bars, not walking as a free man.”
Amid the uproar, a Biden administration official told Politico that the specifics of Conahan's situation weren't taken into account; instead, the commutations were dished out en masse to anyone who fit a general set of criteria. (Is that supposed to make it sound better?) As Politico explains, "those commutations were extended to people on Covid-related home confinement after federal authorities verified that their offenses were nonviolent and not a sex offense or terrorism related."
Those sloppy parameters left plenty of room for serious evil-doers -- like Conahan and who knows how many else -- to be set free. As GOP Pennsylvania state Sen. Lisa Baker asked, "Where does ruining the lives of vulnerable kids in order to enrich oneself warrant a presidential commutation?”
The firestorm comes two weeks after Biden issued a blanket pardon of his son Hunter for any federal crimes he "has committed or may have committed or participated in" between Jan. 1, 2014 and Dec. 1, 2024. Coming after promises that he would not issue such a pardon, the move received condemnation from Republicans and Democrat alike, and an AP-NORC poll found only two out of ten Americans approve it.
“I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities," said Biden in a statement issued alongside last week's pardons and commutations.
There's a great, sickening irony in Biden shortening the sentence of a man who unjustly lengthened the sentences of others -- out of pure greed.