The Review Journal is reporting that Judge Lee Gates has submitted a proposal to the Judicial Discipline Committee to settle the claims that he improperly donated $10,000 to two judicial campaigns. The two donations of $5,000 came from money leftover from Gates' 2002 election campaign.
According to the Review Journal:
The settlement, proposed by Thomas Pitaro, Gates' attorney, and Dorothy Nash Holmes, special prosecutor for the commission, would require Gates to acknowledge that the two $5,000 donations he made in 2004 from his unspent campaign funds were improper.
The contributions were made to Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Karen Bennett-Haron and Nevada Supreme Court Justice Michael Douglas. The donations used contributions left over from Gates' 2002 re-election, when he was unopposed.
Under the proposed settlement, Gates would be required to attend at his own expense a course on ethical issues in the law offered by the National Judicial College. He would have to accept full responsibility for the violation, issue a public apology, and receive and accept a public censure from the commission.
The commission has to approve the proposed settlement before it can take effect. No date for a vote has been set.
Gates could not be reached for comment. He announced earlier this month that he would not seek re-election to the court this year.
All in all, a rather dull ethics violation for Las Vegas, but it's nice to see the wall of silence protecting judicial ethical violations is starting to come down.
No comments:
Post a Comment