Biden official anonymously defends commuting sentence of "kids-for-cash" judge

Michael Conahan, formerly a judge in Pennsylvania, was jailed for 17 years for selling young offenders to private prisons to be used as forced labour. His sentence was commuted by outgoing President Joe Biden last week, to widespread dismay. Politico gave an administration official anonymity to defend the decision.

The administration official defended the commutations for Conahan and others as a sign of Biden's commitment to second chances, rather than a commentary on the president's opinion of their original offenses.

Still, the official downplayed the impact on Conahan's sentence in particular, arguing that he had served the bulk of his sentence, was already on home confinement and likely would have been released in August 2026 without the commutation.

Conahan and his co-conspirators made $2m in the kids-for-cash scheme.

His sentence was commuted because it met criteria (home release due to covid, nonviolent, not terrorism, not gang member, low risk for recidivism) and there was no consideration of "case specifics." The theory goes something like this: having devised an elaborate formula to decide what to, the procedural results are rightly held as beyond human oversight. This means that the people involved in maintaining, managing and executing the formula's outcomes cannot be held responsible for them, and that it is unreasonable and naive to suggest that it could have been done any other way. If anything, human oversight would only introduce bias or unfairness to the system.

I'm not sure everyone would agree with that. I'm not even sure that everyone would agree that the government selling children into forced labor is "non-violent."

Conahan was one of two judges sentenced in the scheme, which led to racketeering conspiracy charges; the other was Mark Ciavarella, who was jailed 28 years and whose sentence was not commuted.