Kids For Cash
Inside One of the Nation’s Most Shocking Juvenile Justice Scandals As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark Supreme Court decision that gave poor defendants the right to counsel, it would be nice to celebrate. That case, taken together with the 1967 decision In re Gault, which gave juveniles the same rights in court as adults, stands for the principle that process matters in our system of justice; when faced with the awesome power of the state, the accused — rich or poor, old or young — must be properly armed. Two recent books put a damper on the celebration, revealing just how random and impoverished justice can be, and how flimsy the right to counsel. In “Kids for Cash,” the investigative reporter William Ecenbarger tells the story behind a corruption scandal so brazen and cruel it defies imagination. Between 2003 and 2008, two Pennsylvania judges accepted millions of dollars in kickbacks from a private juvenile detention facil...