NRS 202.595 "a person who performs any act or neglects any duty imposed by law in willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons or property shall be punished" as a felony if death or substantial bodily harm results. Was his offering $6 to a mentally ill man "willful or wanton disregard"? Maybe. But his failure to offer aid after the injury is clearly willful disregard. Indeed he tries to stop people from assisting, and has people pull Mr. Coner up exacerbating his spinal injury .
The reckless endangerment statute is a horrible statute and probably unconstitutionally vague.
Guest
Anonymous
July 16, 2020 6:31 pm
Judge Rena Hughes won her appeal! Take that Steve Sanson and your band of weirdos. IMO, the correct thing to do is for Steve Sanson, all those reporters, columnists (including Figler) who like to write for independent on-line journals, the Desert Companion and Paul Deyhle to profusely apologize for the damage done to not only Judge Hughes, but the judiciary as a whole.
The correct thing to do would be for Deyhle to step down. How much more State of Nevada taxpayer money does he get to waste by continuing to over-step his boundaries, misinterpret the law, or act as an appellate court? If he is too arrogant to do so, then the State Bar BOG and/ or Governor Sisolak should withdraw its members until the problem is fixed. In the alternative, the S. Ct. Needs to intervene and call for an audit of what is going on, fix the composition of the Commission members and the lack of Rules.
The easy fix today is for BOG to immediately withdraw Karl Armstrong as one of its designated members for his own violations of campaign laws. Come on man, anybody who cannot meet a well documented and spelled out report filing deadline should not be on a “court” that judges siting judges. Also, he surely should not be elected to be a Eighth Judicial District Judge. Who needs another hypocritical judge?
It's the supreme court. And it was thorough and complete repudiation of all of the findings and decision against Judge Hughes. Pretty shocking to be honest.
Nothing the Nevada Supreme Court does surprises me anymore. They are pure evil. The Nevada Supreme Court allowed that small child to be abused by a judge alone. Shame on you!
Pretty good smackdown. How is the Judicial Discipline Commission funded? Lots of time and money wasted prosecuting this case, not to mention the one involving the two JPs.
The Commission gets money from the State. It has its own budget. In the past, Deyhle has requested extra appropriations for the Commission’s operations. Obviously, he has been and is overly zealot and making up the law as he sees fit. No wonder he thinks he needs more money. He has been pursuing things that he has no right to do so.
He makes over $140K year plus benefits. He has continuously said he needs more staff. Now, we all know it is not more staff he needs, but a new Executive Director/General Counsel we need.
There is some money that can go to the budget shortfall. Get rid of Deyhle and his Spence Investigations and Bradley (prosecutor that he uses most of the time). It would be interesting to see how much Deyhle spends on his contractors for investigations and prosecutions.
Somebody at the top levels of government need to take a look at this immediately.
To 12:26 — NO. Shame on the Commission for making up the law and the legislature for giving it unsupervised power with no readily immediate review. The amount of money spent by Hughes and others to show how out of control the Commission is a travesty to all.
Judge Hughes' lapses were in areas of law and procedure(contempt matters, notice matters, apparently changing custody as a sanction or punishment and not affording an evidentiary hearing before changing custody, etc.) rather than being the result of unethical behavior.
The case was not handled well by her, IMO, but I fail to see any ethical violations. These errors in notice, procedure, and miss-application of legal standards, are to be handled in the appellate realm.
The commission essentially substituted itself for an appellate court.
There has been a disturbing trend over the last few years wherein rather than confining itself to pursuing ethical violations, the commission sanctions judges for misapplication of law, notice, and other procedures.
The most common legal/procedural issue they have pursued judges for is their contempt of court rulings(e.g. Assad, Hafen, M. Leavitt, Potter,etc.). And now with Hughes, they went well beyond "contempt" matters and also slammed her about notice issues, application of standards and procedures for changing custody, etc.
They also indulged themselves a farcical vituperation wherein they vent about what a substandard judge they think she is, and they cite NSC and COA opinions which reversed Judge Hughes and/or took her to task. This "roast" was outrageous and has no place in an ethical opinion.
Now, when assembling and reviewing those NSC and COA opinions, something should have occurred to the commission–that being that those are the venues to handle such matters. They should not be handled by ethical commissions.
Now that all said, if something is really willful, intentional, flagrant and outrageous, there may be some cases where the commission could be justified in sanctioning judges for their rulings relative to contempt, or other legal and procedural matters.
The one that comes to mind as deserved is Hafen. That was so shocking, outrageous and moronic that it was deserved. That's pretty much a case where a judge is not merely inadvertently in error, but is intentionally ignoring the most basic rights, laws, and procedures, and instead turning his courtroom into some bloody gladiatorial exhibition.
He handcuffs and summarily holds an DPD in contempt for arguing too much, and then proceeds to adjudicate against her clients without her being permitted to represent them or say anything. And then he compounds this parade of horrors by ordering some law clerk from the P.D.'s office to represent these defendants.
So, even though in the strictest sense those were errors in law and procedure, I think the absurd nature and shocking degree of the violations demonstrates very volitional and ultra-draconian approaches that more than justify the commission slam down.The Judge Potter case also exhibited some intolerable courtroom behavior of a judge, and misuse of contempt powers, but that one is till more properly handled via the appellate realm.
And, again, as to the Judge Hughes matter, that was clearly a case that had no business before the commission, and instead should have been handled via review process.
11:31,1:53, I take no real issue with the points you make, or that other posters make, but it is probably kind of a bittersweet victory(at best) for Judge Hughes, and a case of too little too late.
There is not doubt that this commission decision wounded her politically to a large extent. She took a drubbing from the standard press, there was a lot of adverse internet material on this, it no doubt caused attorneys to rate her far more harshly on the survey, and no doubt largely dried up her ability to raise contributions for her re-election.
So, she entered her re-election campaign as a badly wounded incumbent, she drew two viable challengers, and the crippling effect of covid on the legal community presumably made it even that much harder for her to attract attorney donations.
And in my view as a result of all that, and other factors, she did not seem to have real verve or enthusiasm for her campaign(I don't blame her!) and appeared to spend very little of her own money, and not a great deal of time. And then, of course, she got eliminated in the Primary
So the really disturbing part of this is that even though the commission technically "lost" based on this appellate smack down, there is no blinking at the fact they actually won.
They were in the wrong, but they caused her to be so badly damaged that she could not even survive her Primary Election.
They made it clear they don't think she is judicial material and that she should not be a judge, and they got their wish.
12:26 and 2:19–you and I have an honest difference of viewpoint.
I cannot defend what was done by the Judge. So, I am with you on that matter.
But I agree with the posts that discuss that those are matters for courts of review, and not ethical commissions.
The NSC was only dealing with the propriety of the commission sanctions. They were not ruling that Judge Hughes was proper in how she handled the case and dealt with the child. Those matters can and should be dealt with via appeal as to those specific custodial rulings and other matters.
That said, I acknowledge that when judges really do mess up with custodial matters, and violate a parent's rights, that most parents lack the money or time for an appeal. And the few that do get appealed and successfully over-turned, it doesn't really matter as the appellate ruling becomes essentially moot as so much happens in a child's life during the three years an appeal is languishing.
To:2:30: But the NSC did not merely say that these were legal and factual errors to be reviewed by appellate procedure, rather than ethical violations.
They actually seemed to analyze and justify her rulings, rather than acknowledging that her rulings(although not ethical violations in their view), may not have been legally or procedurally sound.
The real issue w the Hughes matter is that the commission overstepped. They got over zealous and took it too far. It undermines their credibility when they behave that way and now, no doubt, judges are going to be emboldened by this ruling. 1:53 is wrong re: Potter. That was a matter that needed to be heard by the commission. The things that went on in the dept were outrageous and needed to be stopped. Unfortunately, the future Potter's are going to look at the Hughes decision and feel like they can get away with mistreating litigants and attorneys. Non-family law attorneys have to remember, most family law litigants cannot afford appellate relief. They typically can barely afford their lawyers. When judges like Potter do what he did, they are stuck with the results, no matter how unfair, inequitable, or devastating those results are.
Hughes may not have handled the situation with grace, but that mother was openly violating court orders and was unlawfully withholding the child from her father. It had gone on for years and Hughes had given her every opportunity to stop. The child now has both of her parents in her life and she is better for it. Hughes did the right thing, whether her methods were perfect or not. And for those who want to wax on about the video – that child is a performer and has been in productions since she was 5. It was all an act manufactured by the mother.
Finally, 11:31 is correct – Armstrong should not be on the commission…for reasons stated and more. He has no business being on that commission.
Federal Court of Appeals decisions are published authority. Nevada Court of Appeals opinions are not because the Supreme Court has so neutered its Court of Appeals. But at least they will still get to have offices in the Taj Ma-Hardesty.
And the Nevada Supreme Court can do whatever the hell they want. No one else can cite Nevada Court of Appeals decisions, but they can. Why did I vote for Pickering this election?
@3:52 – it specifically says it was an act manufactured by THE MOTHER. Nowhere is anyone blaming the child. That's the point. It was the mother who kept violating orders and was alienating the child from her father. Now she has both of her parents in her life and she is better for it.
Guest
Anonymous
July 16, 2020 6:40 pm
Judges Kephart and Herndon just cost the citizens of the State of Nevada $2.25 million dollars! Way too go!! Congratulations! Somebody should look into a way to take it from their paychecks or assets.
Makes me feel all warm and cozy knowing they are sitting on the bench, and one is seeking to sit as a top jurist of the State. It also is another travesty of justice that ethics complaints against them have been stymied. Yet another win for the citizens of Nevada.
The prosecutors in these cases deserve blame but in all of the exoneree cases, the questions about culpability have been presented over and over again to state and federal courts and the judges didn't listen until finally they did.
Guest
Anonymous
July 16, 2020 11:29 pm
I didn't see this posted. Cory Hilton suspended 5 years that becomes 4 years if we can figure out how to pay back $3.5 Million by December 20th. That is a STAGGERING amount of money.
The stunning part of the Decision on the flip side is that the SCt whacked Hilton for an allegation regarding Hilton's Trust Account Balance in September 2009. You read that right– the Nevada Supreme Court went back ELEVEN YEARS to address trust account issues (despite SCR 106 holding that a Disciplinary Complaint has a four year statute of limitation).
I’ve dealt with him on and off for years. He was always a decent guy. I was shocked to see the dollar figures involved. Going back to 2009 seems unreasonable at first blush, but most statutes limitation are tolled if misconduct is concealed somehow and so I can understand the logic of going back that far in this particular instance.
The article about the $6 offer is disturbing.
Watch the video. This was senseless and brazen. What is an appropriate level of outrage against Keonte Jones?
Disturbing? Yes.
Wrong? Yes.
Immoral? Yes.
Criminal? I don't know.
Some of us old-timers remember the "Bum Fights Videos" cases of a few years back.
NRS 202.595 "a person who performs any act or neglects any duty imposed by law in willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons or property shall be punished" as a felony if death or substantial bodily harm results. Was his offering $6 to a mentally ill man "willful or wanton disregard"? Maybe. But his failure to offer aid after the injury is clearly willful disregard. Indeed he tries to stop people from assisting, and has people pull Mr. Coner up exacerbating his spinal injury .
The reckless endangerment statute is a horrible statute and probably unconstitutionally vague.
Judge Rena Hughes won her appeal! Take that Steve Sanson and your band of weirdos. IMO, the correct thing to do is for Steve Sanson, all those reporters, columnists (including Figler) who like to write for independent on-line journals, the Desert Companion and Paul Deyhle to profusely apologize for the damage done to not only Judge Hughes, but the judiciary as a whole.
The correct thing to do would be for Deyhle to step down. How much more State of Nevada taxpayer money does he get to waste by continuing to over-step his boundaries, misinterpret the law, or act as an appellate court? If he is too arrogant to do so, then the State Bar BOG and/ or Governor Sisolak should withdraw its members until the problem is fixed. In the alternative, the S. Ct. Needs to intervene and call for an audit of what is going on, fix the composition of the Commission members and the lack of Rules.
The easy fix today is for BOG to immediately withdraw Karl Armstrong as one of its designated members for his own violations of campaign laws. Come on man, anybody who cannot meet a well documented and spelled out report filing deadline should not be on a “court” that judges siting judges. Also, he surely should not be elected to be a Eighth Judicial District Judge. Who needs another hypocritical judge?
Is this for real? I need to take a look at this opinion. So, is this Court of Appeals or Nevada Supreme Court? This 8s outrageous.
It's the supreme court. And it was thorough and complete repudiation of all of the findings and decision against Judge Hughes. Pretty shocking to be honest.
Nothing the Nevada Supreme Court does surprises me anymore. They are pure evil. The Nevada Supreme Court allowed that small child to be abused by a judge alone. Shame on you!
Pretty good smackdown. How is the Judicial Discipline Commission funded? Lots of time and money wasted prosecuting this case, not to mention the one involving the two JPs.
The Commission gets money from the State. It has its own budget. In the past, Deyhle has requested extra appropriations for the Commission’s operations. Obviously, he has been and is overly zealot and making up the law as he sees fit. No wonder he thinks he needs more money. He has been pursuing things that he has no right to do so.
He makes over $140K year plus benefits. He has continuously said he needs more staff. Now, we all know it is not more staff he needs, but a new Executive Director/General Counsel we need.
There is some money that can go to the budget shortfall. Get rid of Deyhle and his Spence Investigations and Bradley (prosecutor that he uses most of the time). It would be interesting to see how much Deyhle spends on his contractors for investigations and prosecutions.
Somebody at the top levels of government need to take a look at this immediately.
To 12:26 — NO. Shame on the Commission for making up the law and the legislature for giving it unsupervised power with no readily immediate review. The amount of money spent by Hughes and others to show how out of control the Commission is a travesty to all.
Judge Hughes' lapses were in areas of law and procedure(contempt matters, notice matters, apparently changing custody as a sanction or punishment and not affording an evidentiary hearing before changing custody, etc.) rather than being the result of unethical behavior.
The case was not handled well by her, IMO, but I fail to see any ethical violations. These errors in notice, procedure, and miss-application of legal standards, are to be handled in the appellate realm.
The commission essentially substituted itself for an appellate court.
There has been a disturbing trend over the last few years wherein rather than confining itself to pursuing ethical violations, the commission sanctions judges for misapplication of law, notice, and other procedures.
The most common legal/procedural issue they have pursued judges for is their contempt of court rulings(e.g. Assad, Hafen, M. Leavitt, Potter,etc.). And now with Hughes, they went well beyond "contempt" matters and also slammed her about notice issues, application of standards and procedures for changing custody, etc.
They also indulged themselves a farcical vituperation wherein they vent about what a substandard judge they think she is, and they cite NSC and COA opinions which reversed Judge Hughes and/or took her to task. This "roast" was outrageous and has no place in an ethical opinion.
Now, when assembling and reviewing those NSC and COA opinions, something should have occurred to the commission–that being that those are the venues to handle such matters. They should not be handled by ethical commissions.
Now that all said, if something is really willful, intentional, flagrant and outrageous, there may be some cases where the commission could be justified in sanctioning judges for their rulings relative to contempt, or other legal and procedural matters.
The one that comes to mind as deserved is Hafen. That was so shocking, outrageous and moronic that it was deserved. That's pretty much a case where a judge is not merely inadvertently in error, but is intentionally ignoring the most basic rights, laws, and procedures, and instead turning his courtroom into some bloody gladiatorial exhibition.
He handcuffs and summarily holds an DPD in contempt for arguing too much, and then proceeds to adjudicate against her clients without her being permitted to represent them or say anything. And then he compounds this parade of horrors by ordering some law clerk from the P.D.'s office to represent these defendants.
So, even though in the strictest sense those were errors in law and procedure, I think the absurd nature and shocking degree of the violations demonstrates very volitional and ultra-draconian approaches that more than justify the commission slam down.The Judge Potter case also exhibited some intolerable courtroom behavior of a judge, and misuse of contempt powers, but that one is till more properly handled via the appellate realm.
And, again, as to the Judge Hughes matter, that was clearly a case that had no business before the commission, and instead should have been handled via review process.
1:53–way too long, but essentially correct.
11:31,1:53, I take no real issue with the points you make, or that other posters make, but it is probably kind of a bittersweet victory(at best) for Judge Hughes, and a case of too little too late.
There is not doubt that this commission decision wounded her politically to a large extent. She took a drubbing from the standard press, there was a lot of adverse internet material on this, it no doubt caused attorneys to rate her far more harshly on the survey, and no doubt largely dried up her ability to raise contributions for her re-election.
So, she entered her re-election campaign as a badly wounded incumbent, she drew two viable challengers, and the crippling effect of covid on the legal community presumably made it even that much harder for her to attract attorney donations.
And in my view as a result of all that, and other factors, she did not seem to have real verve or enthusiasm for her campaign(I don't blame her!) and appeared to spend very little of her own money, and not a great deal of time. And then, of course, she got eliminated in the Primary
So the really disturbing part of this is that even though the commission technically "lost" based on this appellate smack down, there is no blinking at the fact they actually won.
They were in the wrong, but they caused her to be so badly damaged that she could not even survive her Primary Election.
They made it clear they don't think she is judicial material and that she should not be a judge, and they got their wish.
I agree with 12:26, Hughes'discipline was appropriate.
12:26 and 2:19–you and I have an honest difference of viewpoint.
I cannot defend what was done by the Judge. So, I am with you on that matter.
But I agree with the posts that discuss that those are matters for courts of review, and not ethical commissions.
The NSC was only dealing with the propriety of the commission sanctions. They were not ruling that Judge Hughes was proper in how she handled the case and dealt with the child. Those matters can and should be dealt with via appeal as to those specific custodial rulings and other matters.
That said, I acknowledge that when judges really do mess up with custodial matters, and violate a parent's rights, that most parents lack the money or time for an appeal. And the few that do get appealed and successfully over-turned, it doesn't really matter as the appellate ruling becomes essentially moot as so much happens in a child's life during the three years an appeal is languishing.
To:2:30: But the NSC did not merely say that these were legal and factual errors to be reviewed by appellate procedure, rather than ethical violations.
They actually seemed to analyze and justify her rulings, rather than acknowledging that her rulings(although not ethical violations in their view), may not have been legally or procedurally sound.
The real issue w the Hughes matter is that the commission overstepped. They got over zealous and took it too far. It undermines their credibility when they behave that way and now, no doubt, judges are going to be emboldened by this ruling. 1:53 is wrong re: Potter. That was a matter that needed to be heard by the commission. The things that went on in the dept were outrageous and needed to be stopped. Unfortunately, the future Potter's are going to look at the Hughes decision and feel like they can get away with mistreating litigants and attorneys. Non-family law attorneys have to remember, most family law litigants cannot afford appellate relief. They typically can barely afford their lawyers. When judges like Potter do what he did, they are stuck with the results, no matter how unfair, inequitable, or devastating those results are.
Hughes may not have handled the situation with grace, but that mother was openly violating court orders and was unlawfully withholding the child from her father. It had gone on for years and Hughes had given her every opportunity to stop. The child now has both of her parents in her life and she is better for it. Hughes did the right thing, whether her methods were perfect or not. And for those who want to wax on about the video – that child is a performer and has been in productions since she was 5. It was all an act manufactured by the mother.
Finally, 11:31 is correct – Armstrong should not be on the commission…for reasons stated and more. He has no business being on that commission.
Good, blame the child.
Wait, what influence does BOG have on judicial ethics commission? How long do you have to file an ethics complaint? NSC botched this one.
Please provide the case no, or link thanks. I am in the midst of reading the Jennifer Abrams' gem of an opinion right now by NSC.
Wait, NSC cites COA opinions? Isn't that against civil procedure? More and more Nevada Supreme Court brilliance.
The U.S. Supreme Court cites federal courts of appeals all the time.
Federal Court of Appeals decisions are published authority. Nevada Court of Appeals opinions are not because the Supreme Court has so neutered its Court of Appeals. But at least they will still get to have offices in the Taj Ma-Hardesty.
And the Nevada Supreme Court can do whatever the hell they want. No one else can cite Nevada Court of Appeals decisions, but they can. Why did I vote for Pickering this election?
@3:52 – it specifically says it was an act manufactured by THE MOTHER. Nowhere is anyone blaming the child. That's the point. It was the mother who kept violating orders and was alienating the child from her father. Now she has both of her parents in her life and she is better for it.
Judges Kephart and Herndon just cost the citizens of the State of Nevada $2.25 million dollars! Way too go!! Congratulations! Somebody should look into a way to take it from their paychecks or assets.
Makes me feel all warm and cozy knowing they are sitting on the bench, and one is seeking to sit as a top jurist of the State. It also is another travesty of justice that ethics complaints against them have been stymied. Yet another win for the citizens of Nevada.
Thanks for the info, I am still supporting Doug Herndon.
But not William "Bill" Kephart?
The Berry case wasn't Kephart or Herndon.
I hold the Steese case as an abomination of justice. However Kephart and Herndon did not cost the citizens anything on the Berry case.
The prosecutors in these cases deserve blame but in all of the exoneree cases, the questions about culpability have been presented over and over again to state and federal courts and the judges didn't listen until finally they did.
I didn't see this posted. Cory Hilton suspended 5 years that becomes 4 years if we can figure out how to pay back $3.5 Million by December 20th. That is a STAGGERING amount of money.
The stunning part of the Decision on the flip side is that the SCt whacked Hilton for an allegation regarding Hilton's Trust Account Balance in September 2009. You read that right– the Nevada Supreme Court went back ELEVEN YEARS to address trust account issues (despite SCR 106 holding that a Disciplinary Complaint has a four year statute of limitation).
Cory Hilton got Elissa Cadish rail roaded, choo choo. This poor fuck needs an appeal. I will wait, thank you.
But Cory J. Hilton is one of America's Top 100 Attorneys!
https://www.americastop100attorneys.com/listing/cory-j-hilton-esq/
I’ve dealt with him on and off for years. He was always a decent guy. I was shocked to see the dollar figures involved. Going back to 2009 seems unreasonable at first blush, but most statutes limitation are tolled if misconduct is concealed somehow and so I can understand the logic of going back that far in this particular instance.
5:30: I have to disagree. Cory Hilton is one of the attorneys on my "do not trust whatsoever" list.
You need a license to cut hair or do nails, but any two morally bankrupt idiots can become parents.
It is a violation of human rights to require any occupational licensing, and idiots have the right to procreate as much as morally smug assholes.