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Monday, February 12, 2007

Courts - "Jurists seal cases of colleagues: Litigants include relatives of those with ties to court"

A story this weekend from the Las Vegas Review-Journal begins:

Keeping from the public information about judicial colleagues or their relatives is among the uses Clark County judges have found for their authority to seal civil cases, given them by a Nevada Supreme Court decision 12 years ago.

Litigants whose cases have been sealed by District Court judges include a Clark County Family Court judge, a Las Vegas law firm with which a former state Supreme Court justice is associated, a medical practice owned by the husband of a former state Supreme Court justice, a lawyer who serves as a temporary judge on matters before the Supreme Court, and an MGM Mirage attorney who unsuccessfully ran for Las Vegas Municipal Court in 2003.

One of the litigants whose case was sealed is Hutchison & Steffen, a firm with which the author of the 1995 Whitehead Decision, on which judges now rely for authority to seal them, is associated. Thomas L. Steffen served on the Nevada Supreme Court from 1982 to 1997, and according to the firm's Web site is "of counsel" to the law firm partly owned by, and named for, one of his sons.

A little research has produced this goldmine (an apt characterization, as this is Nevada) of information about "The Whitehead Case."

Moreover, here is a story from from the Dec. 11, 2006 Las Vegas Review-Journal. Some quotes (emphasis added by ILB):

Former Judge Jerry Whitehead, who resigned from the Washoe District Court in return for a federal promise not to prosecute him, has been honored with a room named for him at the Boyd School of Law on the UNLV campus.

Richard Morgan, dean of the law school, said the naming was requested by David Belding, former chief general counsel of Mandalay Bay Resorts, in connection with his donation of $250,000 to the law school. * * *

"I think it is terribly inappropriate," said Bob Rose, chief justice of the Nevada Supreme Court. "Former Judge Whitehead and his supporters caused chaos at the Nevada Supreme Court for several years because they wanted to dismiss the judicial discipline complaint against him in secret. His conduct precipitated a federal grand jury investigation that ended only when he resigned his judgeship. The law school teaches its students ethics and to do the right thing. The law school is doing the wrong thing by honoring a former judge who was forced to leave office and brought dishonor to the Nevada court system."

The case divided the Supreme Court and Nevada Bar into camps favoring or opposing Whitehead's goals. Rose was considered a leader of the Whitehead opposition.

However, Washoe District Judge Brent Adams, who helped ignite the affair by notifying the Judicial Discipline Commission of some of Whitehead's practices, wasn't offended by the naming.

"Everybody in that episode did what he thought was right at the time," Adams said. "It is appropriate to honor Jerry Whitehead as an outstanding trial judge and as a pioneer of judicial settlement conferences in Nevada. His efforts in the latter regard have saved litigants millions upon millions of dollars." * * *

The Whitehead case began in 1993 when the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission investigated reports of questionable practices in Whitehead's court. Dorothy Nash Holmes, who was Washoe County district attorney, complained that Whitehead showed favoritism in a case.

The commission also looked into allegations that when one side sought to remove Whitehead as a judge in a case, he would assign a judge picked by the other side, even though the new judge was supposed to be chosen at random.

Whitehead also was accused of improperly meeting with only one side in a case, excluding the other, a practice known as ex parte communication.

Whitehead asked the Nevada Supreme Court to halt the investigation and to decide the case in secret, concealing not only the allegations and outcome, but the existence of the case.

His attorneys contended that since complaints to the Judicial Discipline Commission and its investigations were confidential, Whitehead could appeal in secret. After the Supreme Court agreed to the unprecedented secrecy, the Review-Journal revealed the case anyway.

The court unsealed the case but launched a sweeping effort to discover who leaked information to the newspaper.

The case resulted in the Supreme Court issuing new rules for the discipline commission and the Legislature increasing the panel's funding, making it stronger and more effective.

In August 1995, Whitehead agreed to resign in return for a promise he wouldn't face federal prosecution.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 12, 2007 02:03 PM
Posted to Courts in general