- Quickdraw McLaw
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- The Supreme Court says Judge William Kephart retaliated during a sentencing. [RJ]
- Judge Miranda Du again blocks effort to stop mostly mail-in ballot primary. [TNI]
- More than 1 in 4 U.S. workers have lost their job since the coronavirus shut down much of the country in March. [KNPR]
Any recommendations for not crazy expensive document / discovery / production software for a solo? I'm currently using Goldfynch, which is OK for the price, but is kind of clunky and a pain in the ass. I'd consider and maybe even prefer a non-cloud based solution.
Your weekly Hooge-Gram. Supreme Court yesterday issued a published Opinion that OBC screwed up again. SCR 116(2) holds that a suspended attorney can petition for reinstatement even if the attorney has not been able to complete restitution and show good and sufficient reason nevertheless for reinstatement. Hooge refused to give the attorney even a hearing.
The good news is that the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that OBC wrongfully denied a hearing; the bad news is that the attorney has been delayed now over one full year in even getting a hearing because OBC does not know how to read the rules.
Case 79228. http://caseinfo.nvsupremecourt.us/public/caseView.do?csIID=56117
And thus did OBC turn a 4 year suspension into an 8+ year suspension.
Brought to you by the BOG hired and sponsored OBC
Sorry, I don't read that opinion supporting your editorial contention that the OBC "screwed up".
That case addressed a simple issue of whether a change in the reinstatement rule between the time of the order of suspension (with conditions precedent to reinstatement) allows the attorney to seek reinstatement without full compliance of the conditions prior to submitting the petition for reinstatement.
Under the prior version of the rule, the attorney was precluded from applying until they have complied with the conditions. Under the newly amended rule, the attorney can apply and must prove by clear and convincing evidence a good and adequate reason for non-compliance.
Being the suspension order was issued prior to the amendment to the reinstatement rule and contained the conditions precedent to petitioning for reinstatement I can see that OBC's contention that the amendment to the reinstatement rule was not retroactive. Had the suspension order been after the amendment I would agree that OBC's position was unreasonable, but being the condition was in existence at the time of the order, it is reasonable to conclude, absent something in the rule retroactively applying the change to existing conditions, that all conditions existing at the time of the change continue in full force and effect.
Also, the opinion says the Panel Chair made the decision to strike the Petition; not OBC.
The failure to understand that reinstatements are a new matter is a fundamental failure by that office. It is not retroactively applying the rule. The Petition for Reinstatement was filed in 2019. The standard to be applied is the standard in effect in 2019. The OBC has now wasted a year of time and money because of this very fundamental failure to understand its own rules.
Anyone else get an email from Rick Dillard re Judge Kephart?
I just did. I have no idea who that nut is, but it made me laugh.
Jesus what in the world was and is that? I am not saying that there is not a productive way to attack Kephart but that is a screed.
Didn't get the email, what did it say?
It says: "There is mass email of over 500 people going out tomorrow to all Defense Attorneys and Public Defenders not to vote for you����. Basically, reminding them of your past. Guess who is behind this Charge?��������������. The Steese, Lobato, Honeycutt and Sena cases will always damage your career which your name has gone to ��. (((((Maybe not the Sena case))))) So when you run for District Attorney your past will come up again. Karma is something else ������. Change your ways Mr. Kephart and stop being biased and corrupt."
On the other hand, to the attorneys who are complaining about being included in a blast email by "Reply All" and thus blasting a blast email with a blast email (Janiece Marshall and Jeff Whitehead I am looking at you), well that is just silly.
why is that mass email targeted to the defense bar? Everybody in the legal community is aware of his past and has already decided on who to vote to.
i think rick dillard is someone he sent to prison on sex trafficking charges.
Who a pimp?
The "Reply All" spam is funnier than the original email.
3:41 makes the good point that he will not be politically damaged if something is circulated to a number of defense attorneys who are already well-acquainted with his record, and who already presumably have strong opinions about him, and who were thus highly unlikely to vote for him in any event.
But if this info. is in fact largely disseminated to the average voter, it still cannot be presumed it will hurt him. It will be spun that he was a really hard-charging prosecutor, and that will lead to some rare mistakes, and when those mistakes are made the wrongfully convicted are well-compensated, etc.
That would not play well with me or any fair-minded and informed people that I am aware of. But it plays well with a lot of people. Attacking a judge or judicial candidate, who was or is a prosecutor, and making some isolated wrongful convictions or apparent prosecutorial misconduct a center of the attack, always proves to be remarkably ineffective, and in fact it back lashes and usually helps such accused candidate.
The email referred to by 3:35, in addition to preaching to the choir,, is too logical and fair-minded in its approach. It is based on how life should work and what we should, as decent and caring people, be offended by.
But that is not real life. Real life is that candidates are never harmed for being portrayed as hyper-aggressive, or even unethical, prosecutors.
Instead, an excellent and highly ethical defense attorney, if he/she runs for office, is much more in danger of being effectively attacked, from a political standpoint, for "putting the scum back on the street."
There's no rhyme, reason, fairness or basic morality to any of this, and people should not assume that the average voter is motivated by those attributes.
5:51, that's all awful and scary. But from what I have seen from many voters, and having observed many elections, there appears to be at least some substantive truth in what you say.
As some of these remarks point out, we have some people who appear really politically brain dead behind this maneuver.
Conceded that very serious and concerning issues are raised, and that these issues are highly relevant and should impact the voters.
But to target the converted?! Really?!
Essentially this approach is "Judge, we despise you, and are going to do everything in our power to derail your election. And everything in our power consists of we will concentrate 99% of our efforts in telling people who already think you are bad and would never vote for you, just how really bad you are."
Seems that the judge would have been on fairly solid ground if he had deviated somewhat from the recommendations and pronounced "life without the possibility…" rather than "life with the possibility…", by providing a finding or two to justify such deviation. And the justification need not be that compelling as it appears a strong case could be made either for "life with…" or "life without…", and judges have wide latitude and discretion in such state court sentencing matters.
But problem is that the way it all transpired made it appear that he was going to accept the "life with the possibility…" recommendation but simply got pissed off at the guy's obnoxious and aggressive interjections.
But as to the judge's casual remark to the new attorney assigned to the appeal("have fun") it looks like the NSC over-reacted a little bit to that. The remark was a bit flippant, a little inappropriate, and not terribly judicial, but was made after a very frustrating sentencing that kept getting aggressively interrupted.
There are judges who may have incessantly yelled at the guy when he kept aggressively interrupting, and some judges may have threatened to have him gagged or removed, and some judges may have thrown a pocket copy of the constitution at the guy.
So, since the judge generally kept his cool through that ordeal, they should have been content, IMO, to zap him for apparently deviating from the recommendation based on the guy's sentencing hearing behavior(fair enough), and then let it go at that.
But to pile on based on the (admittedly somewhat wise-ass) "have fun" remark was a bit much.
In fact, perhaps the remark may not have been intended as super sarcastic or wise-assed. It could have been a mishandled, miss-phrased attempt to legitimately say that he sympathizes with the attorney as they really have their work cut out for them, having to deal with a case and defendant of this nature.
Now as to what kind of utter moron keeps aggressively insulting someone who will determine whether or not they will ever take a free breath again, we will leave that for another day. Some will say nothing can be done about such people, while others contend that really diligent defense counsel can really work with these guys and prevent at least some of them from making a farce out of their sentencing and shooting themselves in the foot.
whatever you say Billy Boy…
3:06. Typical. Any time someone does not totally eviscerate someone on this blog, or says anything remotely positive or simply a bit nuanced, they get accused of actually being that person.
Real bright. Real insightful. Real original. Real witty.
Also, in this case, quite silly and misdirected as 2:30 essentially agrees with the Supreme Court as to their main criticism of the judge's actions.
As to the post at 2:30, I do like the reference to throwing the pocket constitution. As far as the rest of it, I am not in the mood to deal with anything that requires any analysis or serious review. It's getting too late in the week.
Though a legal benchslap, that RJ article on Bill Kephart is great red meat politics for him. I can't imagine he's too upset about that kind of media coverage.
4:56–very, very true.
It gives him a slice of high profile coverage during the election. And yes, contrary to what many people think, voters who are involved enough to vote in a Primary do check the RJ out to some extent(whether on line or the actual physical paper)as it is our only daily newspaper. We should keep in mind that a large percentage of the electorate are older individuals, and they do tend to read the paper.
And here he has an article, along with a photo., that makes it clear he took no gruff off a violent criminal, and really put him in his place.
Of course we realize the matter is more involved than that, and that it does raise some potential serious concerns. But for the average voter, as 4:56 points out, it will be law-and-order, tough-on-crime red meat.
I think it's net plus for his campaign.
BTW, as to the Defendant, as 2:30 points out, what kind of complete moron will consistently insult, mock and aggressively disrespect someone who will at that very moment decide whether said defendant will ever take a free breath again, or ever be freed from a cage.
It plays up the fact that in addition to a lot of serious violent crime being caused or contributed by mental illness, that incredible stupidity and zero impulse control is another common hallmark.
Should have just put his knee on the guy's neck and had it videotaped. That would have really taught him a lesson and played to the red meat voters.
5:17. Although you are apparently joking in order to make a point, what you said is, sadly, quite true.
If he were to climb down off the bench and start pummeling chained inmates, there would only be a certain percentage of voters who would recognize how intolerable and unacceptable that is.
We would all be shocked to learn the huge percentage of voters who would declare "My Kind of Judge!"
5:13, you will upset those who think the cause of most violent crime is poverty, and that the main cause of poverty is an unfair system.
That said, I do think poverty is a contributing factor for certain theft offenses, but I believe most senseless violent crimes are more a result of mental illness, lack of impulse control, unresolved rage, etc. And if we are discussing gang violence, then other contributing causes can be added, such as intense peer pressure, a need to belong, poor home structure, no education, and yes, we do return to the issue of poverty as one of the causes.
SCOTUS denied cert in Wisconsin case in which two lawyers sued their integrated state bar claiming that compulsory dues violated their free speech and free association rights. (Thomas and Gorsuch dissented from the denial). The State Bar lives!