- Quickdraw McLaw
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- Administrative Order 22-02 is pausing trials longer than 1 week for the next 30 days. Also, no in person hearings. [Fox5Vegas; eighthjdcourt blog]
- Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman overturns her colleague and allows prosecutors access to Ruggs’ girlfriend’s medical records. [RJ]
- Zaon Collins is asking the Supreme Court of Nevada to overturn his DUI conviction. [RJ]
- Families of inmates frustrated over sudden suspension of visits. [TNI]
- As CCSD prepares for a 5-day Covid pause amid a staffing shortage, some teachers complain about being rejected for open positions. [Fox5Vegas]
- US acknowledges shipping radioactive waste from Idaho to Nevada. [KTNV]
Wow, Zimmerman and Bob Langford, overturn another fellow judge. Balls. Wait for more Paul Dehyle witch hunts to proceed against other judges.
10:54–I think the Commission has been slowed down significantly by the Nevada Supreme Court, over the last few years.
For years the Commission was properly focused on clearly unethical behavior, but over the last decade the focus has somewhat shifted(and become much broader) whereby the Commission is also pursuing judges for issues such as lack of sufficient legal and procedural competence and legal inaccuracy of their rulings–matters which should really be left the appellate courts.
These issues include a miss-handling of contempt power, and lack of sufficient notice, due process and other concerns.
A lot of these issues were on display in the Commission decision against a Family Court Judge. The commission decision went to some length to emphasize how the judge had miss-handled contempt powers, failed to assure sufficient notice and right to be heard and other due process concerns, and simply was improperly applying the legal standards concerning changes of custody, etc.
The decision even went to the degree of citing and discussing multiple appellate cases reversing the judge in question, in order to bolster the commission decision as to the fact they believed the judge miss-handled the case at issue and numerous other cases as well, and thus that the judge simply lacked the requisite skill, knowledge or competence required of the position.
And the late, great Bill Terry did successfully appeal the Commission discipline of the judge. The NSC agreed that the appellate system was the remedy to correct faulty rulings of law and procedure, but that such errors generally are not proper fodder for ethical misconduct proceedings.
1:50, good post, but I don't think this NSC decision will have a really broad freezing effect on preventing judicial discipline cases wherein matters are not competently handled by a judge.
Yes, the commission will reign itself in to some real extent, and be somewhat more selective, but you will still see judges occasionally pursued by the commission based on improper applications of law and procedure.
For example, yes, I agree that the Commission is unlikely to pursue a Family Court Judge for something like misapplication of a change of custody standard.
But if a judge really abuses contempt powers, you will still see the commission focused on that as often that is not simply an indication of lack of knowledge by the judge, but can be a knowing and malicious abuse of power.
For example, a Family Court Judge, in the example you offer, is (presumably) not knowingly and maliciously applying the wrong standards for a change of custody.
However that one JP had to know damn well that it was highly improper for him to handcuff that DPD, hold her in contempt, have her placed in the section reserved for inmates, and then still proceed against her clients, without permitting her to say anything but instead requiring some clerk form the PD's office to present on the remaining cases.
And all this because he thought she argued too zealously on a case.
When something that egregious happens with abuse of contempt proceedings, you will still see the commission act, and you will see the NSC back the commission, IMO
But, yes, the commission will be much more careful and circumspect when reviewing matters which mainly suggest that the judge was simply wrong on law and procedure.
Speaking of Bill Terry, his old friend, former judge Rob Bare, has teamed up with former Bar lawyer, Glenn Machado. They are practicing in areas involving professional responsibility issues, according to Rob Bare's Facebook page. Seems like a much needed and valuable resource to me.
I agree with these posts that faulty rulings in general, should not lead to ethical prosecutions, as we assume the judges are not intentionally getting it wrong.
But when judges become tyrannical with contempt powers, they usually know full well they have greatly exceeded their authority. They felt they could get away with it because for years there was no accountability.
But I am glad the commission started slapping down judges in some of these really dreadful situations concerning abuse of contempt powers. The one case discussed, involving handcuffing and stifling the public defender, is one obvious example.
Digging back a few years earlier, another example was the municipal judge who had a defendant's girlfriend held in custody to assure that defendant successfully contacted someone to immediately bring in the rest of the fine money defendant owed on the case.
2:09–yes that is quite welcome news, as Bill Terry seemed to have largely cornered the market as to representing judges and attorneys.
He left a gaping hole when he passed, so it's great to hear that Rob and Glen will be available. They certainly have the pedigree-both were long-term Bar Counsel, and Rob was also a District Judge for a decade or so.
For several years now it has mainly been Bill Terry representing the judges. Once in a while Tom Pitaro would represent a judge or lawyer, and he is exceptional at doing so, but I'm not certain he has done a lot of it over the last several years. It was mainly just Bill Terry in more recent years.
Nevada is an approved nuclear waste dumping ground thanks to Judge Du who rejected Nevada's efforts to reject a previous dump. That said, what are our NV leaders doing? What is our AG doing? Nothing.
I'll take a contrary position. There's a ton of empty land in Nevada. It's remote, not going to be used, and isn't going to bother anyone.
Nevada is also incredibly dry and relatively geographically stable which are both factors that are very important to the storage of nuclear waste. Instead of fighting about this, we should be investing in research on how to use nuclear waste, how to store it, and how to get more federal money into our state to handle it. This is an opportunity.
Agree.
At its height, the Yucca Mountain project employed approximately 3,000, soon it will be zero. These were good paying jobs. Our community has suffered a brain drain due to the loss of the many scientist and engineers who were once employed by Yucca Mountain. It's a shame.
So, the (so-called) nuclear dump issue is returning in full vigor?
Harry Reid and others had some degree of success in stalling and slowing this all down in the 80's and 90's, but it appears it now starts all over.
If it's starting back up, then the trend mentioned by 11:49(3,000 jobs reduced to zero, and brilliant scientists and engineers being driven out of state)may well reverse and start aiming in the other direction.
And yes, having those solid jobs, and knowledgeable scientists and engineers living in our state and working on such project, is a plus for the state.
But at what price? Does the negative outweigh the positive? Probably since we don't know the long-term dangers much more than we understood them in the 80's and 90's, and our knowledge of how to safely store this material, and/or reduce its potency, has not greatly increased since the 80's or 90's.
And, of course, that lack of progression of knowledge is largely caused by the fact the project was realatively dormant since its earlier peak.
It would seem a better place would be one with less seismic activity than Nevada.
Two opinions were issued today by the Nevada Supreme Court, but I cannot access either. The same "document unavailable" message that has been appearing for months appears yet again. What the hell is wrong with the Court's IT system? Maybe the justices should intervene with their own staff instead of trying to run the district courts.
Same. And the usual workarounds of deleting cookies or using incognito windows aren't working either.
Love your Nevada Supreme Court. The best!
I am guessing a the new insta-Captcha is the problem? Either way you can right click and copy and paste the link into a new web page and it works most of the time.
Despite my best efforts, i finally tested positive for covid. Double vaxxed, boosted and have symptoms like a cold. Thanks to the vaccines I'm still well enough to work. Curse you science.
Sorry to hear that. Sending good thoughts to you and your family. Hopefully cold symptoms are all you get and everyone stays healthy in the long run. In the mean time, milk it for all the extensions and continuances you can get.
Here is my question on the Administrative Order and no in-person hearings. Same for Justice Court which conducts petri dish hearings every day?
Probably not until the Justice Court issues its own order.
Or the courts that send PDs into the jail to meet with inmates before each session?
There are no in contact visitations allowed at CCDC currently. All visitations are done via video.