The most ridiculous part of that RJ article is the presupposition that the RJ’s Judging the Judges matters. I’m glad the RJ runs the survey, but the hard truth is that the RJ’s circulation is 10% of what it was when the Adelson’s took over, roughly 30,000. In a city of three million people, and nearly a million voters, a 30,000 circulation is not going to matter. Even if Judging the Judges is read by non-subscribers, the impact is extremely limited.
The RJ did their damnedest to torpedo Judge Peterson. They even went so far as to say if only one change is made, it has to be removing her from the bench. They reminded their readership over and over and over again about the 1A ruling in the Nathan Chasing Horse case. And she won, decisively, 58/42, in large part because the RJ is functionally irrelevant now.
Peterson won for the same reason she won in 2020, and for the same reason every other female candidate won this year. She is a woman on the ballot against a man, and the overwhelming majority of voters have no idea of what they’re voting for in an election. This season was a blue wave, men represent the current administration in most voters’ eyes, so women judges and candidates benefitted from that.
The Judging the Judges survey is based on attorney feedback, not on the RJ’s feelings toward any particular judge. The overwhelming response from attorneys was that Kishner, Perry, Peterson, Spells, Cutter, Bradford, etc. needed to go, or had serious issues with their performance. Schwartz was hammered repeatedly in the news for giving probation to a man who killed a child, yet those same people voted for her to continue doing just that. Not one legitimate legal or personal issue mattered to the majority of the voters.
It’s not that the RJ itself is irrelevant, it’s that local news in general is irrelevant. There are too many people that don’t have any idea what’s going on at the local level, so of course our voters have no idea what they’re voting for when it comes to judges (among many other positions). Voting choices are based on little more than vibes in a time where we have unlimited access to information about any candidate for any position. We’ve become intellectually lazy and uncurious and it bodes poorly for our community.
I am male and I don’t care that voters prefer female candidates. We are probably missing some good male judges (Atkin, Bare, Coffing, etc.), but our judges do a good job. There’s no credible argument that our female dominated bench is incompetent because of gender.
It’s unfortunate that we are talking about gender, which is a nothingburger, and not about the real problem right now, which is PD’s and DA’s dominating the bench. As a civil litigator, this is very troubling. Voters do not understand or care (until their property and money are on the line). Split calendars are stupid. I get that every judge wants a piece of the criminal pie because its easier work, but it does not serve the public well. Each Department should be dedicated to a specific calendar. This jack of all trades stuff needs to come to an end.
Nobody is saying a female-dominated bench is incompetent because of gender. The issue is that when you say “any female always wins” means there’s no real barrier to entry for truly poor female attorneys, leading to truly poor female judges. The same issue would be present if it was “any blonde always wins” or “any Scorpio always wins.”
Jacob Reynolds leads by about 1,000 votes right now. On Wednesday morning, he had a 5,600 vote lead. There were two updates last night, one at about 6:00 PM and another at 10:00 PM. The County Elections office gives us no clue about how many ballots are outstanding. However, by law, they must accept all mail in ballots that arrive today and tomorrow. Mail in ballots skew heavily liberal. Quagge is running at about 57% in the post-election day ballots. It won’t take much more for him to overtake Reynolds.
Nothing fishy about the Left-leaning labor candidates coming in via mail-in ballots.
Guest
Anonymous
November 6, 2026 11:29 am
So let the blue wave roll away,
You made my heart happy on a difficult day.
I may have lost a little political cheer,
But having you, vajaja, is why I’m smiling here.
Guest
Anonymous
November 6, 2026 12:04 pm
Responding to the title of today’s blog: It’s 2026, and actually you can do something about the fact that you are not a woman.
yeah, I hear they mostly do it during the school day without the parents’ consent. Why would my president lie?
Guest
anonymous
November 6, 2026 12:09 pm
So Trump lost on the immigration issue. Why is it that states do not want to disclose to the Feds when an illegal immigrant convict is about to the released? What is their logic? Don’t the states want criminals to be deported back to their home countries?
He lost on the optics around it. Most are in favor of the deportations and not allowing free entrance into the US. People did not want the SWAT Style attacks and killing of innocents.
Convict? They do. NDOC absolutely coordinates with DHS.
Random detainee who may or may not have actually done anything wrong? No. Why the hell should they? Also, they do inform DHS. What they don’t do it hold the detainee longer for than what CCDC has authorization to. What is the logic otherwise? You want the state to be able to just hold people without charge?
Guest
Anonymous
November 6, 2026 12:18 pm
Mike Sanft has passed away, per News 3. Shortly after that Keffe D Trial. RIP
Trial work is so stressful. No way is it fun trying criminal cases from the defense side. I watched part of the trial. He put his heart and soul and was more devastated from the guilty verdict than his client. Wonder if that had anything to do with it.
Guest
Anonymous
November 6, 2026 3:29 pm
To the comments about DA/PD attorneys who handle a split docket. Look at error rates. The civil attorneys turned judges have a significantly higher error rate on civil cases than the DA/PDs turned judges. Significantly! I wish the RJ would run those numbers instead of the judges the judges which is skewed.
Error rates are a terrible metric. Some areas of law have higher rates than others. Does the judge with the “low” error rate maintain it by never granting meritorious dispositive motions? There’s no reason for split calendars and no reason why my clients should have their consequential civil matters heard by a judge with no civil experience.
Error rates mean nothing. As we’ve established, no objective performance metrics mean anything when it comes to whether a judge should keep their job. The only way we’ve been able to get rid of a bad one recently was when the Supremes stepped in and removed her. Short of that, the judges on the bench now will stay there til they’re shipped off to the nursing home.
Error rates are a pretty good objective — and neutral —- measure of how a judge is doing. Literally if their error rate is 40% on civil matters, their civil experience doesnt seem to be serving the bench very well.
The most ridiculous part of that RJ article is the presupposition that the RJ’s Judging the Judges matters. I’m glad the RJ runs the survey, but the hard truth is that the RJ’s circulation is 10% of what it was when the Adelson’s took over, roughly 30,000. In a city of three million people, and nearly a million voters, a 30,000 circulation is not going to matter. Even if Judging the Judges is read by non-subscribers, the impact is extremely limited.
The RJ did their damnedest to torpedo Judge Peterson. They even went so far as to say if only one change is made, it has to be removing her from the bench. They reminded their readership over and over and over again about the 1A ruling in the Nathan Chasing Horse case. And she won, decisively, 58/42, in large part because the RJ is functionally irrelevant now.
Peterson won for the same reason she won in 2020, and for the same reason every other female candidate won this year. She is a woman on the ballot against a man, and the overwhelming majority of voters have no idea of what they’re voting for in an election. This season was a blue wave, men represent the current administration in most voters’ eyes, so women judges and candidates benefitted from that.
The Judging the Judges survey is based on attorney feedback, not on the RJ’s feelings toward any particular judge. The overwhelming response from attorneys was that Kishner, Perry, Peterson, Spells, Cutter, Bradford, etc. needed to go, or had serious issues with their performance. Schwartz was hammered repeatedly in the news for giving probation to a man who killed a child, yet those same people voted for her to continue doing just that. Not one legitimate legal or personal issue mattered to the majority of the voters.
It’s not that the RJ itself is irrelevant, it’s that local news in general is irrelevant. There are too many people that don’t have any idea what’s going on at the local level, so of course our voters have no idea what they’re voting for when it comes to judges (among many other positions). Voting choices are based on little more than vibes in a time where we have unlimited access to information about any candidate for any position. We’ve become intellectually lazy and uncurious and it bodes poorly for our community.
“We’ve become intellectually lazy and uncurious and it bodes poorly for our community.”
That itself deserved a like. Couldn’t agree more.
[assuming the brace position for the misogyny and misogynoir that is about to get unleashed in the comments]
I am male and I don’t care that voters prefer female candidates. We are probably missing some good male judges (Atkin, Bare, Coffing, etc.), but our judges do a good job. There’s no credible argument that our female dominated bench is incompetent because of gender.
It’s unfortunate that we are talking about gender, which is a nothingburger, and not about the real problem right now, which is PD’s and DA’s dominating the bench. As a civil litigator, this is very troubling. Voters do not understand or care (until their property and money are on the line). Split calendars are stupid. I get that every judge wants a piece of the criminal pie because its easier work, but it does not serve the public well. Each Department should be dedicated to a specific calendar. This jack of all trades stuff needs to come to an end.
Nobody is saying a female-dominated bench is incompetent because of gender. The issue is that when you say “any female always wins” means there’s no real barrier to entry for truly poor female attorneys, leading to truly poor female judges. The same issue would be present if it was “any blonde always wins” or “any Scorpio always wins.”
quit the hysterics
Jacob Reynolds leads by about 1,000 votes right now. On Wednesday morning, he had a 5,600 vote lead. There were two updates last night, one at about 6:00 PM and another at 10:00 PM. The County Elections office gives us no clue about how many ballots are outstanding. However, by law, they must accept all mail in ballots that arrive today and tomorrow. Mail in ballots skew heavily liberal. Quagge is running at about 57% in the post-election day ballots. It won’t take much more for him to overtake Reynolds.
That just seems fishy.
Why?
Nothing fishy about the Left-leaning labor candidates coming in via mail-in ballots.
So let the blue wave roll away,
You made my heart happy on a difficult day.
I may have lost a little political cheer,
But having you, vajaja, is why I’m smiling here.
Responding to the title of today’s blog: It’s 2026, and actually you can do something about the fact that you are not a woman.
yeah, I hear they mostly do it during the school day without the parents’ consent. Why would my president lie?
So Trump lost on the immigration issue. Why is it that states do not want to disclose to the Feds when an illegal immigrant convict is about to the released? What is their logic? Don’t the states want criminals to be deported back to their home countries?
that was one of the few issues that most voters still supported Rs over Ds on actually.
He lost on the optics around it. Most are in favor of the deportations and not allowing free entrance into the US. People did not want the SWAT Style attacks and killing of innocents.
Convict? They do. NDOC absolutely coordinates with DHS.
Random detainee who may or may not have actually done anything wrong? No. Why the hell should they? Also, they do inform DHS. What they don’t do it hold the detainee longer for than what CCDC has authorization to. What is the logic otherwise? You want the state to be able to just hold people without charge?
Mike Sanft has passed away, per News 3. Shortly after that Keffe D Trial. RIP
Holy fuck. Does anyone have details? That’s awful.
No way. How? https://news3lv.com/news/local/las-vegas-attorney-michael-sanft-died-represented-tupac-shakur-murder-suspect-duane-davis-sources
He was always a nice person. I hope he rests in peace.
54. Way too young.
The news is stating he passed away from natural causes.
Trial work is so stressful. No way is it fun trying criminal cases from the defense side. I watched part of the trial. He put his heart and soul and was more devastated from the guilty verdict than his client. Wonder if that had anything to do with it.
To the comments about DA/PD attorneys who handle a split docket. Look at error rates. The civil attorneys turned judges have a significantly higher error rate on civil cases than the DA/PDs turned judges. Significantly! I wish the RJ would run those numbers instead of the judges the judges which is skewed.
Error rates are a terrible metric. Some areas of law have higher rates than others. Does the judge with the “low” error rate maintain it by never granting meritorious dispositive motions? There’s no reason for split calendars and no reason why my clients should have their consequential civil matters heard by a judge with no civil experience.
Error rates mean nothing. As we’ve established, no objective performance metrics mean anything when it comes to whether a judge should keep their job. The only way we’ve been able to get rid of a bad one recently was when the Supremes stepped in and removed her. Short of that, the judges on the bench now will stay there til they’re shipped off to the nursing home.
Error rates are a pretty good objective — and neutral —- measure of how a judge is doing. Literally if their error rate is 40% on civil matters, their civil experience doesnt seem to be serving the bench very well.
And yet it doesn’t matter to voters at all, therefore it is a worthless measurement.