Judge Halverson's attempt to constitutionally prevent the citizens of Nevada from voting her out of her judicial seat because she is a national embarassment has failed. The Nevada Supreme Court voted to throw out Halverson's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of judicial positions being created that last less than six years because "the framers of the constitution'' intended for the election of district court judges to occur during the same election cycle. (the opinion is available
here).
The court voted 7-0 to throw out Halverson's lawsuit in which she claimed she and District Judges James Bixler, Susan Johnson and William Potter should not have been required to file for re-election this fall because their terms shouldn't end until 2012 . . .
[T]he Supreme Court, looking back at a decision made in 1871, said the constitution permits shorter terms when the intent is to have all district judges run on the same election cycle.
On an even potentially odder note, apparently Halverson is willing to try anything to stop the voters from voting to oust her. After appearing at oral argument and realizing the Supreme Court was not enthusiastic about her ruse [whoops, I meant lawsuit] to keep her seat on the bench, Halverson filed a complaint against the Nevada Supreme Court with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over the length of her term.
The Justices noted in a footnote that Halverson failed to inform them of the complaint when she appeared before them June 13 during oral arguments in the case. The court was served with the EEOC complaint on June 23.
"We nevertheless determine that we have a duty to sit and decide this matter,"
stated the court in the decision written by Justice Jim Hardesty.
Nice. At this rate, after the election, she'll storm her old courtroom with her hired bodyguards and refuse to leave.
Who doesn't love a good ranking of law firms? Chambers and Partners has come out with its 2008 rankings of the top attorneys in each major area of practice. WWL will be posting the top Nevada firms/attorneys for each category of legal practice in a separate post.
