- Quickdraw McLaw
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- Is Judge Scotti making poor decisions from the bench? Jane Ann Morrison seems to think so. [RJ]
- Lawyers of October 1 shooting victims looking to remove Paddock’s estate from their lawsuits so they can move forward. [LasVegasNow]
- For those of you who didn’t know, you can view the Supreme Court’s ADKT orders here. And you can see what’s on their calendar here.
He is not the only one. Apply the friggin law. You are politically motivated or don't like the facts of the case, tough. Apply the law.
Exactly what law wasn't applied? Yeah, yeah I, know 1st Amendment, Freedom of the Press and all that, BUT it was ONE autopsy report, what about the over 60,000 other pages and videos he did order metro to release? I personally don't want to read about or see someone's autopsy report in the paper, nor would I want my murdered loved one's there for all to see.
I'm not a Scotti fan or anything, but why should we care that Jane Ann Whoeversname thinks he makes poor decisions? Sure, she may have an audience of RJ readers, but again, so what?
JAM is a senile axe-wielding harpy who has no legal knowledge. Someone should put the rest of us out of our misery by getting her off the RJ.
To: 10:53 and 11:01. Agreed that those in the legal community need not be too concerned about what some journalist, untrained in the law, writes about a certain judge.
But the important point is that the average reader/voter tends to believe anything negative written about a judge, lawyer or politician, and they may punish Scotti at the ballot box(even if that is wrong-headed)
But in this case, she's not wrong, right?
I'm no JAM fan, but I have been very unimpressed with Scotti based on my limited interaction. Maybe not enough yet to reach a considered opinion, but so far, not good.
1:17 here again. 1:37 deserves a direct answer to a direct, very legitimate question.
Agreed. In this case she is not wrong. The judge, IMO, made a complete hash of the issue of the coroner's reports, and the absurdity of the ruling was compounded by an even more absurd order to attempt to put the genie back in the bottle. The order to collect all the reports after they had already been distributed, even though they were all redacted, was ludicrous beyond measure.
It was akin to an order as follows. Someone cuts open a feather pillow on an extremely windy day, and the thousands of feathers are spread over many miles by the extreme wind.Weeks later, a judge issues an order that all the feathers be collected and restored to the pillow. So, yes, in addition to being a highly improper reversal of Judge Williams' proper order, the additional order to try to retrieve everything already released goes far beyond merely improper–it is absurd.
But speaking in a broader context, when there are negative articles about judges, whether they are valid or not, the public tends to believe them.
I usually agree with the common refrain from frustrated attorneys that judges should simply "apply the friggin' law".
But the issue is not always that simple. Yes, often the law in question is quite clear and judges, either due to lack of preparation, lack of sufficient legal acumen, or being influenced by the attorneys before them or being gun shy of the media, refuse to apply the law properly.
But on the other hand, most experienced practitioners will concede that the mantra to "simply apply the law", does not recognize certain realities. Those include statutes which are ambiguous or otherwise poorly drafted, seemingly conflicting case authority, and fact patterns which are unusual, or have a twist, and therefore justify examining the matter through a somewhat different lens.
Yes,the large majority of time the law to apply is clear.But in cases where it is not necessarily so clear, and there is an opening, that is when skilled lawyers are on top of their game, and where judges are justified to really consider and reflect on matters rather than reflexively "applying the friggin' law."
Now that said, often the law is clear and aggrieved attorneys try to be clever, and claim the law is unclear so they can litigate and charge their clients and stroke their own egos, rather than recognizing the limits of the case and applying damage control.So the problem is not limited to judges refusing to apply the law. Often attorneys fail to concede the obvious controlling law, and try to create largely pointless expensive litigation(which, yes, the judges should try to curtail and control).
So, IMO, the issue is not always so simply as "just apply the law".
I don't know, 10:03. There have been a lot of times where I thought the law was ambiguous and slightly in my favor, but opposing counsel argued it was clearly against me — or vice versa. The judges have ruled on both sides.
It's the same with facts. I can show a video of an accident to one side, and they believe that it's 100% in their favor, then show it to the other side, and they believe that it's clearly in their favor (with maybe 25% comparative, if they're generous).
If everything were so cut-and-dried as people like to claim, there would be a lot less for us to do.
Agree with 10:03. Jane Ann Morrison the RJ legal critic has it all wrong. We often criticize Judges for not making the hard decisions. Then when we have a Judge who is willing to stick his neck out, she wants to chop his head off. Have not read the pleadings and don't know if Judge Scotti was urged by the parties to make the ruling he made. Sometimes Judges adopt arguments made by the parties. This was a case of first impression. Nevada's Public Records law does not protect patient privacy with regard to certain medical records.
No one is trashing Scotti for his interpretation of the Nevada Public Records law. As to this being a case of first impression, the piles of SCOTUS precedent on prior restraint would beg to differ.
I am being quoted on the legal blog.
These judges do not know what the scotus is.
and then other times it is that simple. Just apply the friggin' law means don't make rulings that contradict well-established legal principles and case law, like, oh, maybe prior restraint?
SBN website lists Kym Cushing as being at Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelmen & Dicker. Wilson Elser web page no longer lists Cushing. Anyone have info on this?
This is the issue which came up the other week regarding the discovery issues. Kym is not there any more but has not updated his address with the State Bar.
Why don't you just call Kym and ask?
Did you even google it? Linkedin puts him at LBBS.
LBBS doesn't list him either
So there was a discipline decision that came out last week that I had to go re-read three times because honestly it is worst example of the Supreme Court and OBC being out of control that I have seen. Having read this one, I will NEVER trust a single word that the State Bar tell me and you should not either.
Attorney goes to the State Bar in 2013 before criminal proceedings are filed against Attorney and says that he wants to cooperate and mitigate as much as possible. State Bar tells Attorney to "suspend yourself", wind up your practice beforehand, hand off all of your clients and make a smooth transition for the your clients and staff. Attorney does exactly what OBC says. State Bar tells the Attorney to stipulate to a suspension 18-24 months, which will run from when me "suspend" you by making you Inactive. Attorney does exactly what OBC says and goes Inactive in January 2014. NSC does its thing in June 2014 to do a formal suspension but notes that Attorney went Inactive as of January 2014.
OBC and Attorney stipulate to (and Panel approves) to a 24 month suspension on the record to run January 2014-January 2016. Supreme Court rejects it and demands another hearing. OBC holds another hearing in June 2016, at which time the Panel rules that the suspension should be 30 months and run from January 2014 to July 2016.
It took the Nevada Supreme Court from June 2016 until end of 2017 to enter an Order for a 4 year suspension, in which the Court (a) gave ZERO credit for mitigation and (b) ran the Suspension from June 2014 and ignored all of the time when the State Bar had instructed Attorney to suspend himself.
Attorney filed a Petition for Rehearing, in which Attorney argued not to change the length of suspension but certainly that a mistake had been made in not starting time from when OBC told Attorney to suspend himself. To their credit, OBC filed a Non-Opposition and admitted "Yeah that was pretty unfair." State Bar admitted that the Decision would destroy any public policy incentive for attorneys to ever cooperate with the OBC. Supreme Court on a 4-2 Decision REFUSED to change the date even when the OBC was in agreement. So for voluntarily cooperating, Attorney not only did not get mitigation but actually is serving an extra 5 months. Said it before and will say it again: do not trust ANYTHING that has to do with the Nevada Discipline system.
FFS. They are making Court of Appeals look good right now.
This decision damages the OBC and State Bar because any attorney who agrees to OBC's demands still must gamble that the NSC will see it the same way. If the NSC disagrees with the OBC, then the attorney has lost all effective means of defending himself.
The problem is that the NSC is acting both as a quasi-trial court and an appellate court in this circumstance. Either the NSC should appoint a special master to sit in judgment of attorneys in discipline proceedings, then require the special master to elevate his or her FFCL to the NSC for final determination (and thus relegate the OBC to prosecutor), or the NSC should defer to OBC's recommendations and act like an appellate court.
It's another Hardesty special.
@6:59 You are 100% correct.
@7;36– You are 100% correct. It was a Hardesty decision.
@ 6:59– Here is the problem generally. The Supreme Court applies a de novo standard to imposition of discipline. There is no actual presentation to the Supreme Court. They hear no witnesses or evidence and have no duty to actually review the evidence.
But this case above is the absolute WORST case of abuse between the OBC/NSC. The thought that you can do EXACTLY what the State Bar tells you to do and not only not be recognized, but be punished, for it is absolutely frightening. It really goes to show you that the Supreme Court is not actually even reading the record because when you read the Decision they (1) applied no mitigation and (2) never even recognized that the Attorney had been directed by the State Bar to do this. The problem is that, unlike a trial court who completely bollocks up a Decision, the Supreme Court is not held accountable to anyone, not even in a public hearing to put on the Record how badly they screw up Decisions like this.
this was brought to their attention on unopposed rehearing and they still stood by their deicsion
For those of you who are barred in California, I took a quick look at the general process. I'm not licensed there, so I don't know how it works in practice, but the basic steps are: State Bar investigates complaint, attempts to reach resolution with attorney. If unsucessful, files a complaint in State Bar Court. Bar Counsel acts as prosecutor, the Bar Court is an independent court made up of actual judges, appointed by the three branches of California government. There's a trial-level Hearing department and an appellate level Review Department. Anyone familiar enough with the practical aspect of it to speak as to whether it's actually fair?
Arizona does something similar. State Bar acts as a prosecutor but there is a PDJ appointed: Presiding Disciplinary Judge. takes evidence, reviews testimony, makes Decision. Takes 1/6th the time that cases in Nevada take and is much more fair.
@1:31- Supremes were told that they had made a mistake by the State Bar, that the Decision made a mistake on the date and would set HORRIBLE precedent and on a 4-2 Decision REFUSED to change it. Hubris.
I really feel for the guy. Being told if you cooperate and comply you will get 18-24 months and then the Supreme Court takes 4 years to levy a 4 year suspension (Gee why would they do that?) that is really a 4.5 year suspension simply because you did exactly what OBC said. Shameful.
The NSC is on par with the foreclosure bros.
Are you kidding me that Arizona's disciplinary system "is much more fair"? What a laugh. Be careful what you wish for. Pray Nevada never adopts Arizona's system that was modeled on Colorado's. Many AZ lawyers hate the AZ PDJ system and think it is high handed and corrupt. The PDJ is unaccountable, untouchable, and was created solely by the AZ Supreme Court out of whole cloth as an extra-constitutional office since there's no support or provision for the office expressly provided for in the state constitution. Case in point is how a few years ago, a scandal hit the PDJ and to the surprise of no one, nothing happened to him. The matter was swept under the rug. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/04/16/divorce-case-stirs-ethics-allegations-judge/7765749/
Sounds like so long as you don't shoot the Judge's horse, you are ahead of the game.