The final defendant from the 2014 Bundy standoff was sentenced yesterday. [Las Vegas Sun]
Does anyone have any additional insight on why the billionaire behind Marsy’s law, who was arrested in Las Vegas last August, hasn’t been charged yet? [Nevada Current]
Boulder City and Clark County are still trying to reach an agreement about Boulder City’s municipal court judge. [BCR]
The three finalists from which Governor Sisolak will select an appointee to the Court of Appeals are:
Bonnie A. Bulla, 56, Las Vegas, Eighth Judicial District Court, Office of the Discovery Commissioner
Tracie K. Lindeman, 56, Carson City, Attorney
Jerry Weise, 52, Las Vegas, Eighth Judicial District Court, Dept. 30
The chosen appointee must run to retain the seat in 2020. If they win, they’ll serve the remaining two years of the term before running again for a six-year term in 2022. [nvcourts]
I hope it is Bonnie. I could see her being fine if she wasn't dealing with discovery disputes day in and day out.
Guest
Anonymous
January 16, 2019 5:17 pm
Is there a pay increase when one moves from the District Court to the Court of Appeals? It seems like being a District Court judge would be more interesting work. Maybe the hope is to move up to the Supreme Court. I agree with other posters. JAWS is a great judge and I would like to keep him in District Court. He is probably the leading candidate though.
Yes. The base salary of a judge of the court of appeals is $5,000 higher than a district court judge's base salary. Compare NRS 2A.080 (providing salary for court of appeals judges) with NRS 3.030 (providing salary for district court judges). There's a bill pending at the legislature this coming session to increase judicial salaries, but only prospectively. See A.B. 46 (80th Leg., 2019). The reason judicial salaries cannot be changed mid-term is because it's constitutionally prohibited. See Nev. Const. art. 6, sec. 15.
Thanks for the info. So what's the motive for a DC judge to move up to the COA? Certainly not another paltry $5k a year. I could see a person with a more academic personality wanting to do appellate work over trial work. But JAWS seems to me to be such a practical person. Is it perceived prestige? A hope to land on NVSC? This still doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Guest
anonymous
January 16, 2019 5:24 pm
Bonnie would be fine. Jerry is a really good trial judge and I would hate to lose him to such an inconsequential position as a seat on the Court of Appeals.
Guest
Anonymous
January 16, 2019 6:04 pm
JAWS is great in judicial settlement conferences too. It would be a big seat to fill if he moves up. Bonnie is well suited for the COA. I don't know the other candidate but she certainly knows the justices and that my be enough sway for Gov. Steve "Oakland Raiders $650,000,000" Sisolak.
Guest
Anonymous
January 16, 2019 6:20 pm
Tracy Lindeman is a good lawyer. And she excels at writing.
Guest
Anonymous
January 16, 2019 6:20 pm
Best choice, IMHO, is Weise. Candidly, and with absolutely no disrespect or any negative vibes toward the other two finalists, I don't even think it should be a close call.
That said, our new Governor, in my view, is kind of a Democratic purist, despite attempts to move to the center during the General Election. Like most Nevada Governors, he may eventually cross the aisle and appoint a applicants from the other party(Republican) to about one-fourth or one-third of the judicial vacancies he eventually fills, while the other vacancies will likely be filled by applicants of his own party(Democrats). But starting out with his initial appointment, particularly one so high as the COA, he may follow the trend of most Governors–i.e. it is never known whether it will only be a one term, as opposed to two term, Governorship, and it is never known how few, or how many, judicial appointments, such Governor will get to decide.
That is why, for their first initial judicial appointment or two, they tend not to cross the aisle, and will instead appoint from their own party.
And Judge Wiese is a Republican, so that needs to be considered. If the appointment was limited only to determining the best of the three finalists, I think it would be Wiese. But these matters are determined largely by political and other considerations, aside from mere question of determining who is the most legally sound and knowledgeable finalist.
"That said, our new Governor, in my view, is kind of a Democratic purist, despite attempts to move to the center during the General Election."
I don't think it's reasonably possible for anyone to describe Sisolak as a "Democratic purist." Look at his appointments since getting elected. His director of the Business and Industry Department is a mining company executive who served in the Reagan administration. His legislative liaison is the previous administration's incumbent legislative liaison. His head of HHS is the woman who spearheaded Arkansas' "private option" conservative alternative to Medicaid expansion. Who's his most liberal pick – keeping Dzurenda around, who is a moderate who was also appointed by the previous governor? And I think pretty consistently across his career (i.e., not just during the gubernatorial campaign), Sisolak has pushed center-right, pro-business policies. That's not a "Democratic purist".
I don't know enough about the judicial politics to say how this all plays into that, I just don't think it makes any sense at all to act like Sisolak is left-wing. He's the exact same political animal as Brian Sandoval, only with less charisma.
However Sisolak is also a very Pro-South guy. The seat is replacing Abby Silver so appointing someone from the South would keep the relative balance on the Court. Wiese is much more of the temperament of Sisolak than Bulla is.
I think Bulla would perform better on the COA than in her current positon.
People should be matched with their skill set. Her critics, who seem to focus far more on demeanor concerns than any significant problems with her legal acumen, would disagree with me when I insist she definitely has the legal chops to serve on the COA.
It would be a much better match for her, IMO, than her current position where she deals with very high volume, must interact consistently with lawyers, who get aggravated by whet they perceive to sometimes be a somewhat picky and un-necessarily technical(and sometimes erroneous) approach to procedure requirements, filing requirements, formatting requirements, etc. Plus, her staff has also come under criticism for not being the most user friendly.
So, essentially, she is immersed in an environment of a crushing case-load, huge volume, often difficult attorneys, and she admittedly may not have the ideal personality match and bedside manner for such positon.
Although I think she is generally good in her position, and a lot of critics have even acknowledged significant improvement, I think COA could be a much better fit.
And I happen to think a lot of the criticism may be over-blown. I can understand when attorneys are irritated if they are being required to jump through un-necessary additional hoops, but in instances where that is not the case and instead the concerns are limited to a somewhat uneven demeanor, I think we should all strive to be as thick-skinned as possible.
If a judicial officer basically gets the ruling right, but they were somewhat grumpy toward me or worse, it's best not to get too concerned about that–especially when the client is not with us to witness the dressing down.
That all said, I acknowledge that issue (not getting unduly distracted by a judicial officer's demeanor), is much easier said than done. We've all had instances where we left a hearing being resentful and upset with how we may have been treated, rather than focusing on the fact that the rulings were ultimately by no means bad for our case.
But demeanor can be so important that, at times, a really bad demeanor virtually seems to make everything else secondary. People simply react very badly if they are unduly mistreated, and even more so if it is in public and can undermine a client's confidence in the attorney.
There have been some judges whose treatment of attorneys was so bad at times that it would take a herculean effort on the part of attorneys to put that aside and immediately just focus on the actual rulings.
I understand what 12:47 is saying, and am not necessarily disagreeing, but for most attorneys, immediately being able to mentally compartmentalize and ignore an awful and direct attack upon them, and separate that out from the actual rulings, is very difficult.
Bulla's demeanor can be bad. I'm sure part of this is a function of having to constantly put up with the same BS from the same frequent fliers who wind up in her courtroom. There is no issue with her intellect, however, which is why she would be ideal for the Court of Appeals. Jerry would be fine too, but he is much more valuable as a trial/settlement judge.
12:47, what you say is fair in general. My main concern with Bulla is that she often appears unprepared. She doesn't know the facts that are in the filings before her, and as a result, she makes decisions based on incomplete information. I'd also agree that her demeanor is a problem and in my opinion she wears her biases like a badge of honor. I'd love to see her on the COA, but shudder to think who we might get in her absence.
I've been in front of Bonnie occasionally over the years, and also I've been at a couple CLEs that she's led. I get the sense that she generally tries hard to be nice, but sometimes the job — the stupid bickering and bullshit — gets to her. Not only does she have to do the hearings, but she's constantly on the phone with attorneys raising stupid issues at depositions. I'm saying that while acknowledging that a few times, whether I won or lost on the phone calls, I was thinking to myself that it was ridiculous to even make the call.
I'm not saying I would pick her over the others, as I have no real idea of the full scope of their actual qualifications, but I do think the criticism is excessive when you think about what her job entails.
If Weise wins, does he immediately start serving in the Court of Appeals?
Guest
Anonymous
January 16, 2019 8:02 pm
If I remember correctly. Linderman has spent the majority of her career in various staff attorney positions at the NSC actually drafting dispositional orders or opinions (or supervising others doing the same). Among the 3 candidates that would give her an advantage over the other finalists. Both Weise and Bulla have trial court bench experience, Bulla having higher volume but with the safety net of having a District Judge reviewing and approving her recommendations.
The process now moves to what I call the purely political aspect of the game. The Governor now has to try to balance 2 primary and competing interests: political interests (favors owed, party loyalty, future political plans) v. practical considerations (long term retention v. place-setter until the next election to allow an open seat for the voters to fill). The political interest side focuses more on what the Governor is trying to do to benefit himself down the road. The practical considerations is a focus not on how it will personally help the Governor but more what s/he wants to accomplish with the appointment. We have in the past seen appointments made with an eye towards long-term retention (more common goal) but also for a place-holder until the next election (more rare and more common for local seats like municipal courts).
The next 30 days is where it gets interesting as the Governor privately balances those interests in making his final selection.
I think the governor also has an eye towards the person appointed keeping the job. It probably would not look good to go through the process and make the appointment only to have the appointee lose. In that regard, Weise has a proven track record of winning. He used Dave Thomas in his first race which leads me to believe he is a democrat. I am only aware of Thomas representing one republican – Judge Hardy. Also, both AG Ford and Sisolak have recently made important female appointments (in Ford's case – all female). I am curious to see if the trend will continue.
Guest
Anonymous
January 16, 2019 9:33 pm
Both 12:02 and 12:10 very accurately discuss the various motivations at work when determining the ultimate appointment. These comprise various political and practical considerations. Sadly, though, notice how political skill and knowledge(i.e. who has the best legal ability for the positon) are not included in any of these factors.
Most lawyers don't recognize what these posters do–that who really deserves the appointment, and who has the most skill and ability for it, are not really considered. The best person, from a legal perspective, is seldom selected. Instead the more political juiced-in person is selected, or the one, who as the one poster suggests, best matches what a Governor may be attempting to accomplish political-wise, diversity-wise, etc.
But most lawyers don't realize this, and when asked their opinion of who will be appointed, approach these matters form a positon of good judgement and fairness. So, if you want to know who will not be appointed, ask a bunch of lawyers their opinion, an who they think will be appointed, They will invariably, and quite reasonably, identify the applicant who is the most experienced, knowledgeable and effective lawyer among the finalists. But that person almost never gets the appointment.
Guest
Anonymous
January 16, 2019 11:40 pm
Wiese was a Republican but changed to Democrat later on to win his current seat.
Guest
Anonymous
January 17, 2019 12:04 am
That doesn't generally sit well with democrats – assuming, as mentioned above, Sisolak is very democrat.
I hope it is Bonnie. I could see her being fine if she wasn't dealing with discovery disputes day in and day out.
Is there a pay increase when one moves from the District Court to the Court of Appeals? It seems like being a District Court judge would be more interesting work. Maybe the hope is to move up to the Supreme Court. I agree with other posters. JAWS is a great judge and I would like to keep him in District Court. He is probably the leading candidate though.
Yes. The base salary of a judge of the court of appeals is $5,000 higher than a district court judge's base salary. Compare NRS 2A.080 (providing salary for court of appeals judges) with NRS 3.030 (providing salary for district court judges). There's a bill pending at the legislature this coming session to increase judicial salaries, but only prospectively. See A.B. 46 (80th Leg., 2019). The reason judicial salaries cannot be changed mid-term is because it's constitutionally prohibited. See Nev. Const. art. 6, sec. 15.
It'd be minor bump up for Jerry, a significant bump for Bonnie, and a hefty increase for Tracy. Transparentnevada.com
Thanks for the info. So what's the motive for a DC judge to move up to the COA? Certainly not another paltry $5k a year. I could see a person with a more academic personality wanting to do appellate work over trial work. But JAWS seems to me to be such a practical person. Is it perceived prestige? A hope to land on NVSC? This still doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Bonnie would be fine. Jerry is a really good trial judge and I would hate to lose him to such an inconsequential position as a seat on the Court of Appeals.
JAWS is great in judicial settlement conferences too. It would be a big seat to fill if he moves up. Bonnie is well suited for the COA. I don't know the other candidate but she certainly knows the justices and that my be enough sway for Gov. Steve "Oakland Raiders $650,000,000" Sisolak.
Tracy Lindeman is a good lawyer. And she excels at writing.
Best choice, IMHO, is Weise. Candidly, and with absolutely no disrespect or any negative vibes toward the other two finalists, I don't even think it should be a close call.
That said, our new Governor, in my view, is kind of a Democratic purist, despite attempts to move to the center during the General Election. Like most Nevada Governors, he may eventually cross the aisle and appoint a applicants from the other party(Republican) to about one-fourth or one-third of the judicial vacancies he eventually fills, while the other vacancies will likely be filled by applicants of his own party(Democrats). But starting out with his initial appointment, particularly one so high as the COA, he may follow the trend of most Governors–i.e. it is never known whether it will only be a one term, as opposed to two term, Governorship, and it is never known how few, or how many, judicial appointments, such Governor will get to decide.
That is why, for their first initial judicial appointment or two, they tend not to cross the aisle, and will instead appoint from their own party.
And Judge Wiese is a Republican, so that needs to be considered. If the appointment was limited only to determining the best of the three finalists, I think it would be Wiese. But these matters are determined largely by political and other considerations, aside from mere question of determining who is the most legally sound and knowledgeable finalist.
"That said, our new Governor, in my view, is kind of a Democratic purist, despite attempts to move to the center during the General Election."
I don't think it's reasonably possible for anyone to describe Sisolak as a "Democratic purist." Look at his appointments since getting elected. His director of the Business and Industry Department is a mining company executive who served in the Reagan administration. His legislative liaison is the previous administration's incumbent legislative liaison. His head of HHS is the woman who spearheaded Arkansas' "private option" conservative alternative to Medicaid expansion. Who's his most liberal pick – keeping Dzurenda around, who is a moderate who was also appointed by the previous governor? And I think pretty consistently across his career (i.e., not just during the gubernatorial campaign), Sisolak has pushed center-right, pro-business policies. That's not a "Democratic purist".
I don't know enough about the judicial politics to say how this all plays into that, I just don't think it makes any sense at all to act like Sisolak is left-wing. He's the exact same political animal as Brian Sandoval, only with less charisma.
However Sisolak is also a very Pro-South guy. The seat is replacing Abby Silver so appointing someone from the South would keep the relative balance on the Court. Wiese is much more of the temperament of Sisolak than Bulla is.
I think Bulla would perform better on the COA than in her current positon.
People should be matched with their skill set. Her critics, who seem to focus far more on demeanor concerns than any significant problems with her legal acumen, would disagree with me when I insist she definitely has the legal chops to serve on the COA.
It would be a much better match for her, IMO, than her current position where she deals with very high volume, must interact consistently with lawyers, who get aggravated by whet they perceive to sometimes be a somewhat picky and un-necessarily technical(and sometimes erroneous) approach to procedure requirements, filing requirements, formatting requirements, etc. Plus, her staff has also come under criticism for not being the most user friendly.
So, essentially, she is immersed in an environment of a crushing case-load, huge volume, often difficult attorneys, and she admittedly may not have the ideal personality match and bedside manner for such positon.
Although I think she is generally good in her position, and a lot of critics have even acknowledged significant improvement, I think COA could be a much better fit.
And I happen to think a lot of the criticism may be over-blown. I can understand when attorneys are irritated if they are being required to jump through un-necessary additional hoops, but in instances where that is not the case and instead the concerns are limited to a somewhat uneven demeanor, I think we should all strive to be as thick-skinned as possible.
If a judicial officer basically gets the ruling right, but they were somewhat grumpy toward me or worse, it's best not to get too concerned about that–especially when the client is not with us to witness the dressing down.
That all said, I acknowledge that issue (not getting unduly distracted by a judicial officer's demeanor), is much easier said than done. We've all had instances where we left a hearing being resentful and upset with how we may have been treated, rather than focusing on the fact that the rulings were ultimately by no means bad for our case.
But demeanor can be so important that, at times, a really bad demeanor virtually seems to make everything else secondary. People simply react very badly if they are unduly mistreated, and even more so if it is in public and can undermine a client's confidence in the attorney.
There have been some judges whose treatment of attorneys was so bad at times that it would take a herculean effort on the part of attorneys to put that aside and immediately just focus on the actual rulings.
I understand what 12:47 is saying, and am not necessarily disagreeing, but for most attorneys, immediately being able to mentally compartmentalize and ignore an awful and direct attack upon them, and separate that out from the actual rulings, is very difficult.
Bulla's demeanor is bad. I was maltreated for just being an attorney, I did nothing untoward. Wiese or Tracie, not her.
Bulla's demeanor can be bad. I'm sure part of this is a function of having to constantly put up with the same BS from the same frequent fliers who wind up in her courtroom. There is no issue with her intellect, however, which is why she would be ideal for the Court of Appeals. Jerry would be fine too, but he is much more valuable as a trial/settlement judge.
12:47, what you say is fair in general. My main concern with Bulla is that she often appears unprepared. She doesn't know the facts that are in the filings before her, and as a result, she makes decisions based on incomplete information. I'd also agree that her demeanor is a problem and in my opinion she wears her biases like a badge of honor. I'd love to see her on the COA, but shudder to think who we might get in her absence.
I've been in front of Bonnie occasionally over the years, and also I've been at a couple CLEs that she's led. I get the sense that she generally tries hard to be nice, but sometimes the job — the stupid bickering and bullshit — gets to her. Not only does she have to do the hearings, but she's constantly on the phone with attorneys raising stupid issues at depositions. I'm saying that while acknowledging that a few times, whether I won or lost on the phone calls, I was thinking to myself that it was ridiculous to even make the call.
I'm not saying I would pick her over the others, as I have no real idea of the full scope of their actual qualifications, but I do think the criticism is excessive when you think about what her job entails.
I am farting in my mouth.
This comment has been removed by the author.
1;17 — Congratulations on your recent admission to the bar. What's the matter, Boo Boo? Big Bad Discovery Commissioner yell at you?
Pretty sure Wiese is a democrat.
Are you sure? If so, then that increases his chances because at least part of what 10:20 says is accurate.
I would bet that Wiese is a Republican.
Wiese found the med mal caps unconstitutional. He is a democrat.
He was also a P.I. attorney, so…
He’s also a devout Mormon and Boy Scouts booster with a buzz cut. So, yeah, Democrat.
Wiese for me, and I am a democrat.
Doesn't matter either way. He's not an ideologue.
If Weise wins, does he immediately start serving in the Court of Appeals?
If I remember correctly. Linderman has spent the majority of her career in various staff attorney positions at the NSC actually drafting dispositional orders or opinions (or supervising others doing the same). Among the 3 candidates that would give her an advantage over the other finalists. Both Weise and Bulla have trial court bench experience, Bulla having higher volume but with the safety net of having a District Judge reviewing and approving her recommendations.
The process now moves to what I call the purely political aspect of the game. The Governor now has to try to balance 2 primary and competing interests: political interests (favors owed, party loyalty, future political plans) v. practical considerations (long term retention v. place-setter until the next election to allow an open seat for the voters to fill). The political interest side focuses more on what the Governor is trying to do to benefit himself down the road. The practical considerations is a focus not on how it will personally help the Governor but more what s/he wants to accomplish with the appointment. We have in the past seen appointments made with an eye towards long-term retention (more common goal) but also for a place-holder until the next election (more rare and more common for local seats like municipal courts).
The next 30 days is where it gets interesting as the Governor privately balances those interests in making his final selection.
I think the governor also has an eye towards the person appointed keeping the job. It probably would not look good to go through the process and make the appointment only to have the appointee lose. In that regard, Weise has a proven track record of winning. He used Dave Thomas in his first race which leads me to believe he is a democrat. I am only aware of Thomas representing one republican – Judge Hardy. Also, both AG Ford and Sisolak have recently made important female appointments (in Ford's case – all female). I am curious to see if the trend will continue.
Both 12:02 and 12:10 very accurately discuss the various motivations at work when determining the ultimate appointment. These comprise various political and practical considerations. Sadly, though, notice how political skill and knowledge(i.e. who has the best legal ability for the positon) are not included in any of these factors.
Most lawyers don't recognize what these posters do–that who really deserves the appointment, and who has the most skill and ability for it, are not really considered. The best person, from a legal perspective, is seldom selected. Instead the more political juiced-in person is selected, or the one, who as the one poster suggests, best matches what a Governor may be attempting to accomplish political-wise, diversity-wise, etc.
But most lawyers don't realize this, and when asked their opinion of who will be appointed, approach these matters form a positon of good judgement and fairness. So, if you want to know who will not be appointed, ask a bunch of lawyers their opinion, an who they think will be appointed, They will invariably, and quite reasonably, identify the applicant who is the most experienced, knowledgeable and effective lawyer among the finalists. But that person almost never gets the appointment.
Wiese was a Republican but changed to Democrat later on to win his current seat.
That doesn't generally sit well with democrats – assuming, as mentioned above, Sisolak is very democrat.