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Victims of ‘kids-for-cash’ judge outraged by Biden pardon: ‘What about all of us?’ (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago by spit_evil_olive_tips@beehaw.org to c/politics@beehaw.org

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In 2011, Michael Conahan was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison after he and another judge, Mark Ciavarella, were found guilty of accepting $2.8m in illegal payments in exchange for sending more than 2,300 children – including some as young as eight years old – to private juvenile detention centers.

if you're unfamiliar with the backstory of this "kids-for-cash" scandal, yes that is an accurate name for it. here's the Wikipedia article about it.

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[–] decayedproton@beehaw.org 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The judge may well have deserved a life sentence for all the harm he did, so please don't think I'm defending him, but the reporting on this story has been disappointing.

Conahan was released from prison in 2020 due to Covid-19 and placed on house arrest, which had been scheduled to end in 2026.

So the previous administration decided he didn't need to be in prison, which is worth explaining. What was the reason? Did they find him to be reformed and worthy of living at home?

Conahan’s sentence was one of about 1,500 the US president commuted – or shortened – on Thursday while also pardoning 39 Americans who had been convicted of non-violent crimes.

Doing the math, he has served a little more than 13 of his 17 year sentence. How many years did Biden commute? Is he being released within days, or did he only have one year taken off the end of his sentence, so that he gets out in 2027 instead of 2028? The article doesn't say.

In response to Conahan’s pardon

Guardian, you just said that it was a commutation, not a pardon. How can you get it wrong in the very next sentence??? The most basic standards of accuracy would demand that you not contradict yourself so quickly.

And if the media wants this to be a scandal, they need to investigate the reason for the commutation. Did Conahan make contributions to Biden's campaign? It would be easy for a newspaper to find out one way or the other. Or was he asked to pay a cash bribe for a reduced sentence? Or did he spend the last 13 years volunteering and living a life that we'd admire if it wasn't for the things he'd done before? Or does he have a terminal illness and won't live past March? Or is he a close friend of a top official? We don't know... because the media wants to publish the story without first doing their job.

[–] coffeetest@beehaw.org 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Research the story and present a nuanced view? Or lazy rage click bait title? Decision, decisions.

And for the record I know nothing about this story, I'm just looking at how entertainment, I mean news works..