- Quickdraw McLaw
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Most of you aren’t working today, right? For those of you are, here’s a link to the Nevada Independent’s analysis on why Lieutenant Governor Mark Hutchison can argue in court on recalls regarding state senators. Nor surprisingly, the article only mentions state ethical rules and nothing about the ethical duties of an attorney. What do you think? Did they miss anything? Any of you inclined to write an op-ed to tell them why they’re wrong?
On appeals, it surprises me how willing opposing counsel allows their client to look bad with a reported opinion.
Did they know it was going to be a reported opinion? In this day and age, everything is effectively "reported" and citable.
This is amazing to me. in Washoe, Egan Walker gets appointed from District Court/Family Seat to District Court/General Jurisdiction. This opens Walker's seat for appointment. One person applies. That's right: one person.
2/14/2018 12:27:16 PM
The Nevada Commission on Judicial Selection decided this morning to review confidential materials before making a decision on the next steps for filling the judicial vacancy in the Second Judicial District Court, Dept. 2. The seat was made vacant by the appointment in November of Judge Egan Walker to the Second Judicial District Court, Dept. 7.
The lone applicant is Dixie Grossman, 42, a court master in the Second Judicial District Court – Family Division. Grossman is a Nevada attorney with 10 years of legal experience and the necessary years of Nevada residency.
The Commission scheduled a meeting and possible interview of Ms. Grossman for March 12. According to Commission rules, her name can be forwarded to Governor Brian Sandoval without an interview. The Commission also can conduct an interview prior to sending her name to the Governor, or start the judicial selection process again and seek other applicants.
The Supreme Court website at http://nvcourts.link/NVJudicialSelection contains Ms. Grossman’s application. Confidential information, such as medical records and personal identification information, has been redacted.
The Commission invites written public comments about the applicant qualifications. The deadline for the public to send confidential letters is March 2, 2018.
Commission rules allow letters to remain confidential if requested by the letter writer. However, the Commission may discuss the contents of the letter with the applicant during executive session. Commissioners may not consider anonymous letters at their discretion.
The Nevada Commission on Judicial Selection is composed of seven permanent members – the Supreme Court Chief Justice, three non-attorneys appointed by the Governor, and three attorneys appointed by the State Bar of Nevada. Neither the Governor nor the State Bar may appoint more than two permanent members from the same political party, and cannot appoint two members from the same county.
Commission Members:
•Justice Michael L. Douglas, Carson City, Supreme Court Chief Justice, Chair (Constitutional appointee)
•Valerie Cooney, Carson City, past executive director, Volunteer Attorneys for Rural Nevadans (State Bar appointee)
•Jeffrey Gilbert, Henderson, veteran gaming executive (Governor appointee)
•Jesse Gutierrez, Sparks, former executive director, Nevada Hispanic Services (Governor appointee)
•Gregory Kamer, Esq., Las Vegas, attorney, Kramer Zuker Abbott (State Bar appointee)
•Jasmine Mehta, Esq., Reno, Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners (State Bar appointee)
•Leslie Williams, Schurz, division director, Finance and Administration, Washoe County Social Services (Governor appointee)
For District Court vacancies, two temporary members are appointed from the judicial district where the vacancy occurs – a non-attorney by the Governor and an attorney by the State Bar – bringing the Commission membership to nine.
Temporary Commission Members:
•Wendy Damonte, Reno, Vice President of Advocacy and Community Partnership, Renown Hospital (Governor appointee)
•Rost Olsen, Sparks, staff attorney, Volunteer Attorneys for Rural Nevadans (State Bar appointee)
Having read this Press Release, I had no idea that the permanent/regular Members of the Judicial Selection commission consist of: 5 members from the North and 2 members from the South. Think about that.
Census estimates for July 2016 puts Nevada's population at 2.940 million people and Clark County's population at 2.155 million people. That means 73.3% of the population is in Clark County. However 28.5% of the Judicial Selection Committee is from Clark County.
Greg Kamer is on the Judicial Selection committee, and he is endorsing candidates. Nothing to see here.
Justice Douglas doesn't really count as being "from the North," does he? Just because he's based there now?
Sure he does considering he has been up there 14 years and offices up north. Furthermore, even if you consider Douglas being from the south, then you have 73.3% of the population is in Clark County and 43% of the Judicial Selection Committee is from Clark County.
Anyone affiliated with the Bar is the infidel.
Was it the entire panel who was involved in selecting Stiglich?
Whole panel (with special appointments for each new position) selects three and Governor selected from those.
I can't believe there is only one applicant. If it were in Clark County, presumably there would be dozens. Although we are certainly larger than Washoe, Washoe is large to the point that I would expect at least half a dozen applicants, and that is usually the case.
Are we to believe that a Hearing Master is so juiced in that everyone else is too intimidated to apply and/or perceives that it would be useless to do so?
And if there is only one applicant, why do they seem to perceive that to preserve the integrity and transparency of the process that they need to undergo all the required protocol?
Why spend the tax payer money and time on the absurdity of interviews, inviting and analyzing public input, etc.?
Just confirm her and hand the damn job to her. No one is going to be impressed that they decided to protect the process by undergoing all the technical requirements. Don't waste time and money. The public isn't impressed if you invite public input at the same time you tell the public the input will be totally ignored as the person will be confirmed.
And no one will believe any nonsense such as the argument that it is still viable to undergo the process on account that if pubic comment is so universally set against this applicant, that she will be rejected and the process will start all over again. There is 0% of that happening.
Just give her the job if no one else wants it.
To; 12:38:
It looks like from the press release that some of these procedures can be bypassed if they choose to. Her name could be simply sent to the Governor without further interviews or procedures.
Or they may, as you suggest, decide to jump through all the hoops.
It's not quite clear.
To 12:38:
It's not that no one else wanted the job.
I reside in Reno and I know several people expressed interest in applying for the position. The problem was that the appointment process was announced AFTER the deadline to run in 2018 was passed. If appointed, the appointed person has to run in the next regular election. In this case, it would be 2018. Then they would have to run again in 2020.
Because the appointment opportunity was posted AFTER the deadline to file as a candidate had passed, several interested lawyers were left with the Hobbsian choice of applying for a job that would effectively end in 8 months. Nobody wants to wind down a practice to then be unemployed come January 1, 2019.
If commission had scheduled the process to be complete by the end of filing to run for the position, there would have been several applicants. I don't think this was done intentionally to narrow the field, I just think the timing was bad.
To: 1:55:
Based on that, I wouldn't want it if I were her. It's not like at the end of the year she could simply return to her Hearing Master position. They will not keep that dormant for the rest of the year, and it would be difficult to get someone to leave their practice, or whatever their current situation, to serve as a Hearing Master for 8 months.
A few are sometimes willing to serve as placeholders for an actual judgeship(such as Grossman herself at this time), but probably not to serve as a placeholder for a Hearing Master or Referee type position.
So, I hope Master Grossman knows what she is giving up(her Hearing Master position to serve as a District Judge for a mere 8 months) and I hope no one told her that her Hearing Master position would be kept open for her, and filled in the interim with alternates, so she can return to it full-time once she finishes the last 8 months as a District Judge.
If she was told or promised something like that, it never works out that way. Within two months there would be a great hue and cry that there is no consistency, and much chaos, in having rotating alternates handle the cases. By the end of the summer, a full time person would be appointed(the funding is already there as Grossman's salary was authorized for that, and paying all these rotating alternates would exceed such salary).
So, if her plan was to serve out the year in Dept.2, and then return to her Haring Master position that is supposedly being kept open for her, those of us with 30 or more years experience can attest that it that these situations never follow such trajectory–either in Clark or Washoe.
She is a candidate for the 2018 election. Her only opponent is a local attorney who isn't expected to spend any money or really have much of a chance.
Regardless of Hutchison's towering litigation prowess, no one can seriously question that in large part he was hired to argue the recall case for the Republican PACs because he is the current Lt. Gov., and a Republican himself. It does not make it less of a conflict of interest for him because he will "probably" not have to act as the President of the Senate before his term expires; he is still an active public official who could potentially be called upon to act as the President of the very elective body he is trying to remove opposition members from. Like the examples of the Unborn Spouse and the Fertile Octogenarian that were used in law school to illustrate the basis for the Rule Against Perpetuties, the test is not the "remoteness" of the act that creates the conflict, it is the "possibility" of the act. That is why attorneys and judges are always cautioned to avoid even the "appearance" of conflicts of interest, not just actual conflicts.
This seems correct to me. It also seems we're missing that the conflict is not necessarily in appearing in court on behalf of the recall PACs, it's that he obtained the contract to litigate and argue those cases because of his status as Lt. Gov. That, to me, seems to be the strongest case for an ethics violation. NRS 281A.400(10): "A public officer or employee shall not seek other employment or contracts through the use of the public officer’s or employee’s official position." If he obtained the employment because of the office he holds, that seems to be treading on thin ethical ice.
If this was Adam Laxalt, with little to no actual legal experience in the relative fields, I might agree that there's a problem ethically. Hutchison has the qualifications, though, so good luck proving that the reason he was hired was because he's Lt. Gov. instead of the reason he's Lt. Gov being that he is a very good lawyer.
They have a 1 star overall rating on Yelp. Just saying..
According to the Nevada Independent, the Ethics Commission, tasked with enforcing NRS 281A, does not see a conflict
Hutchison's legal qualifications AND whether he was hired because of his position as the state's Lt. Governor aside, when you read the article referred to above there are multiple references to the fact that it is the LT. GOVERNOR arguing before the court the case of removal of members of the body over which he presides. When it comes to the "appearance" of impropriety, perception is everything, and the proscription is strict.
11:21 — Hey, I'm sure we all know plenty of very good Republican lawyers who are not Lt. Governor.
"Dan, the greatest appeal lawyer in the state…" according to the Claggett
12:19: I wouldn't put much stock in a nonbinding, unofficial, "I was given 30 seconds to think about this before giving the reporter a quote" response. It will take a formal ethics complaint to get a more meaningful answer.
That is scary. There is a conflict.
Anyone find it amusing the NV Supreme Court's e-filing and online case search are offline?
Totally saw that.
Explain…
https://nvcourts.gov/Supreme/
"The Supreme Court Website, Efiling system, Supreme Court case information portal, and Court of Appeals case information portal are currently unavailable. There is no estimated time that these systems will be available. We apologize for the inconvenience."
So what the hell are you suppose to day, mail it?
Ask Dan the appeal man
Seriously, we need "like" buttons on this blog
I am going to take my $.60 stamp I was going to use to mail Dan's transcript request in and send it to Hardesty to buy a clue.
"Thoughts and Prayers"
Clark County Coroner defies Williams while attempting to follow Scotti, and refuses to release any of the autopsies. Yep. No-one saw this coming.
Move along…the escalator of cover-up is waiting for you…now let me tell that Danley had no involvement either
Actually the Coroner gave out the 58 autopsies to everyone who asked for them up until Scotti ruled the way he did. What did not get reported was that he told the Coroner to tell all the people he had disseminated them to about his order. The Coroner, like everyone else, is in a holding pattern until the Supreme Court acts. Hmmm
Coroner is refusing to release further copies of the autopsies due to the conflict between the rulings. Scotti has created a mess of epic proportions.
I still cannot believe what a one horse town Las Vegas is.