Scandals behind the judicial rankings

Accompanying the Judging the Judges report, the Review-Journal published an article detailing the judicial scandals that may have led to some of the low rankings. Here's the juicy bits:

• Judge Halverson is accused of mistreating staff, sleeping on the bench and illegally communicating with jurors. She was suspended with pay in July. Only 8 percent of the 303 attorneys who rated her said she should be retained;
• Judge Del Vecchio stands accused of sexually abusing his ex-wife's daughter when she was a minor and sexually harassing her as an adult while she worked as his executive assistant.
  Since the allegations went public, Judge Del Vecchio's retention score took a nose dive, falling 36 percentage points to 41 percent this year;


• Family Court Judge Steven Jones was arrested on a domestic battery charge two years ago after his live-in girlfriend said he threw her down a hall. She later recanted her story, saying it was fueled by chronic alcoholism. The incident was the fourth time in as many years that police arrested someone at the judge's home on domestic violence charges.
  Jones still earned a retention rate of 72 percent, "[b]ut that is down 13 percentage points from the 2006 survey";


• Chief Judge Kathy Hardcastle "drew some of the harshest condemnation in comments included in the survey." Some partly blamed Hardcastle for the Halverson debacle and critics called her "heavy-handed and vendetta-driven". One lawyer wrote, "Whatever my opinions of Judge Halverson, I did not then nor do I now believe that Judge Hardcastle had the authority to take the actions she did." Judge Hardcastle's retention score was 54 percent, down from 60 percent in 2006;


• Justice Nancy Saitta, "who at 45 percent received the worst retention score among state Supreme Court justices, was criticized for exaggerating her credentials." She claimed on her 2006 campaign Web site to have been an associate professor in political science at UNLV when "[i]n fact, she was a part-time instructor";


• District Court Judge Donald M. Mosley "was singled out as a case study by the Los Angeles Times for giving unspent campaign funds to a girlfriend who he said repaid them." His retention score was 56 percent, down 10 percentage points from two years ago;


• Municipal Court Judge George Assad got a retention score of 44 percent, down 23 percentage points after he was reprimanded last year by the Judicial Discipline Commission for detaining a woman in 2003 for no legally justifiable reason.


• District Court Judge Lee Gates saw his rating fall 6 percentage points to 43 percent after agreeing to acknowledge making two improper $5,000 campaign donations in 2004.

Ah the Nevada Judiciary: stalwarts of decency and ethical values, as those sitting in judgment should be.