One former Vegas Judge on "Juice vs. Justice"
June 13, 2006 | 9:47
am
The Las Vegas Sun has a front page story this morning on the local legal community reacting to the L.A. Times series on Nevada justice, "Juice vs. Justice." According to the Sun:
"The president of the Nevada Bar Association said Monday a three day series of newspaper articles highly critical of some Southern Nevada judges may help reform the state's process of selecting and retaining judges. Vince Consul, a Las Vegas attorney, said the Los Angeles Times' stories 'spread through the legal community like wildfire.'"
To quote the Sun's summary:
"The series, 'Juice vs. Justice,' criticized the state's court system and judges and showed that some Nevada judges routinely do not reveal conflicts of interest they have in cases involving friends, former clients and business associates.
The stories were also critical of the fact that Nevada's elected judges rely almost exclusively on campaign contributions from lawyers and casinos, on whose cases they have ruled or will rule."
Yet, it seemed to me that while the specifics might have been unknown, the gist of everything in the articles has been in plain view here for some time.Yesterday I met for dinner with Dayvid Figler, a local NPR commentator, retired municipal judge and practicing criminal attorney. Because of Figler's legal career, he is among the members of the local media who take pride in having commented for years on many of the themes in the "Juice vs. Justice" series. (By the way, as a local lawyer, Figler says he gave no money to any judge mentioned in the L.A. Times series and that he does not contribute to the campaigns of judges he is likely to appear in front of.)
Still, as a local lawyer, Figler is reluctant to use the names of specific judges, something that, if nothing else, the L.A. Times article was not shy about doing.
Q: Was there really that much response to the series?
A: When it came out a lot of lawyers were printing it out and reading excerpts aloud.
Q: How tight knit is the Las Vegas legal community?
A: Everybody knows everybody. Everybody has appeared in front of all the judges. Everybody knows a lot of things about all the judges.
Q: Was there anything in the series that surprised you?
A: No. Not one thing. The statistics were interesting. But there was nothing that was particularly new. That is why I don't think it is going to have a monster impact on this community. I don't think much is going to come from it. There were no real surprises, because that is the way it works here. There is no requirement for disclosure. There is no requirement for recusal. There is often the appearance of impropriety. But it begs the question of if the judges are actually doing something wrong, and that is a question unanswered by the story. Here is the problem: judges operate within a very large zone of discretion. It is virtually impossible to tie in an exercise in discretion with the impropriety you can only suggest it. Judges are operating well within the law through allowable discretion. So, you don't want to piss a judge off. One of the untold parts of the story is the type of squeeze that a lot of judges put on lawyers to actually cough up some contribution. It is a very subtle pressure.
Q: Do you feel our judicial system has been corrupted by money or that money has only created the appearance of corruption?
A: I think the appearance of corruption is so ubiquitous at each corner you really can't escape it. But I don't know you can make a leap from the appearance. I just don't know.
Q: From your more than a decade practicing is there any individual case that you know of where money corrupted the judge's decision?
A: Directly or indirectly?
Q: Directly.
A: I don't know that. But indirectly, yes. Do I think judges ever want to rule against casinos? Absolutely not. Casinos are a great source of money. And, I don't think there is one judge who would have an easy time going against a casino in any litigation. It would be very difficult to rule against casinos for fund raising reasons.
Q: There have been a lot of complaints that the local media has not covered this....
A: With the exception of myself. I have been talking about this for some time. I have made nice cheeky remarks over the years. But it is a culture of who cares.
Q: OK, with the exception of you. But mostly this was left to the Los Angeles Times to tell and not local press. Do you think that this represents a failure by our local media?
A: No. Where is the story? The series anecdotally suggests what is going on, but no one really analyzed or evaluated the propriety of the individual decisions that were made in the L.A. Times series. Of course, a lot of people didn't return their calls and there is a reason for that as well. There are a lot of quirks and nuances to any justice system that has been in place for a long time that is not going to look real pretty. So, I think the local media didn't pick up on it since what is the angle when every judge is doing it? Local media talk about individual judges. They cover things case by case. If local reporters were to spend one week in any courtroom seeing every case they would be so blown away by the other quirks in our judicial system that they would have enough to write about for a year.
Q: Well, as a journalist and lawyer I nominate you to do that.
A: I would have to stop practicing law in this town.
Q: Just from what you could observe and write about in one week?
A: I would have to stop practicing law after the story came out. But it would be phenomenal.
Q: So, there is a lot left to be done by local media on our system of justice?
A: Plenty.
(Photo: Sarah Gerke / For The Times)
Why does anyone sound surprised at the justice system or lack thereof in Clark county ? One gets better justice in Clark county when the MOB ran the place than presently.
Posted by: chris White | June 14, 2006 at 10:25 AM