- Quickdraw McLaw
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Pursuant to Article 6, Section 19 of the Nevada Constitution, the Chief Justice can recall to service any retired justice or judge of the court system who consents to such recall and who has not been removed or retired for cause or defeated for retention in office–in other words, that section is the basis for the current senior judge program.
We want to hear about your thoughts on the current use of senior judges. Have you had good experiences or bad experiences when faced with a senior judge? Are there any senior judges to avoid? Any recommendations on improving their involvement at the district court level?
I like senior judges. They aren't afraid to make hard decisions because they are not elected. I hate that our judges are elected. It makes them complete wusses, always punting tough decisions down the road.
In my opinion the use of Senior Judges is unconstitutional. Whether you agree with judicial elections or not, the fact remains that the current state of the law in Nevada is that judges must be elected (or appointed and then run for election at the next general election following appointment). The use of senior judges is nothing more than an end run around the requirement of judicial elections. While the senior judge may have been elected on one or more occasions in the past, the simple fact is that their term has expired. I have appeared for hearings only to find a senior judge is conducting the hearing. Under the rules, I cannot use a peremptory challenge on the senior judge at that time (my recollection of the rule is that the challenge has to be filed 30 days in advance for a senior judge). If I object at the hearing, my client may well bear the brunt of an adverse ruling when the hearing is reset before the active judge on the case.
I'll bite. How do you argue that the use of Senior Judges is unconstitutional when Article 6, Section 19, paragraph 1(c) of the friggin' Nevada Constitution specifically provides that the CJ can recall old judges and give them temporary assignments. That's like saying women can't vote because it's unconstitutional, ignoring that pesky ol' 19th Amendment.
I don't like senior judges coming in midway through a case or sometimes just for a hearing on a specific issue. My experience is that in most cases they aren't as familiar with the issues and usually the rulings are harsher on one of the parties than maybe they should be.
Also, there is a reason why some of the senior judges did not seek re-election other than retirement. The reality is some of the senior judges retired because they were on shaky ground for re-election.
All that being said, I don't mind them for settlement conferences and things like that.. Essentially, they are helping the courts to keep cases moving and providing parties a shot at ADR that they may have never agreed to if they had to pay thousands each just to show up.
This has been my experience. They can really work you over depending on when they get involved. One time a senior judge was filling in for a new judge and I got a better ruling than I expected from the new judge. On the other hand, I've had Judge Gates step in and really mess things up and muddying the record.
He's been muddying up the record for decades and I'm just talking about his mumbling.
I love Judge Gates!
I'm surprised by how evenly split this poll was. I've had nothing but bad experiences with senior judges.
Think of it this way. For every bad experience you had, the other side probably had a good experience.