Judge, litigants’ view of Family Court differ

Wednesday, June 4, 1997 | 10:33 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The much-criticized Clark County Family Court system is slow to make decisions, bases some rulings on sexism and is tearing families apart instead of uniting them, a parade of critics told state lawmakers.

At a hearing Tuesday, Murray Westgate, who has been fighting a 14-year battle for custody of his daughter, said the court is "more combative and more relentless" than in the past when domestic matters were handled by district judges, along with their other cases.

But supporters said the court, while it has its problems, is better than the former system and is making progress.

Marshall Willick, a longtime family attorney, told the Assembly Judiciary Committee that the 4 1/2-year-old court "does more good than harm." More attention is paid now to child custody, alimony and property cases than in the past, he said.

The testimony came at a hearing on Assembly Bill 473, sponsored by Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, to abolish the system and return the jurisdiction to the district judges.

Arberry said the system is not "user friendly" and cases have not been processed quickly as had been promised. It takes two years in some child custody cases, he said, and there is evidence of gender bias by five of the eight judges.

These judges, he said, aren't domestic relations experts and their decisions are "destroying the family."

But Family Court Judge Robert Gaston told the committee, "We're doing a marvelous job under the hardships we have." Since its inception, the court has processed 116,000 cases.

A judge in Las Vegas has an average caseload of 2,302 compared with the national average of 1,103. "Family courts handle the most emotional, stressful, heart-rendering, contentious cases of any court," Gaston said. "That's why more Family Court judges are shot by litigants than any other court."

And that's why there are more complaints against Family Court judges than other judges, he said.

Talking about the effectiveness of the court, Gaston said 96 percent of its cases were resolved within one year and no other states exceed that. He said the court is trying to reach 100 percent.

The 4 percent that are not decided within one year, he said, represents hundreds of cases and some are complicated and take more than 12 months.

Of the decisions made by the court, less than 1 percent have been appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court. And of the 85 appeals in 1996, only 6 percent were overturned. So, he said, the vast majority of decisions have been good.

The court has set up a domestic violence center to help victims; has the only emergency protective order system in the nation where the judges are on call 24 hours a day to sign temporary orders; and it has started the first juvenile drug court in the nation, Gaston said.

Even some of the harshest critics did not go so far as to call for abolishing the system. State Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, called the system "a mess." He said the workload of the judges is tremendous but hinted there is favoritism.

"If you know a clerk or an assistant, you're in," he said. "You have a good chance of getting heard or getting a (favorable) decision."

He said attorneys contribute to judges' election campaigns. "If you contribute, your case is going to get a lot better (treatment) than if you did not."

But O'Donnell said he is "not taking such a hard line" as to call for the court's elimination.

O'Donnell has spearheaded the case of Kyle and Sandy Ambrose, whose teenage daughter ran away and got an order temporarily switching guardianships without the parents ever being notified.

The committee started to hear testimony Tuesday on SB231, which would make changes in the guardianship law handled by Family Court, but it ran out of time. Further hearings on the guardianship bill will be scheduled. The bill has already passed the Senate.

Kyle Ambrose, who was near tears, told the committee how his daughter Tiffany, then 16, disappeared from home and went to live with the family of her boyfriend, Gino Cincotta.

"Day after day we would go without knowing where our child was," Ambrose told the committee. She left March 20, 1995, and a temporary order was signed by the court transferring guardianship.

Ambrose said he and his wife did not know where Tiffany was until April 5 when she came home to pick up her clothes. A hearing in Family Court was held later in which the guardianship was permanently switched to the Cincotta family.

Tiffany is now reunited with her father and mother.

After the hearing, committee Chairman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, said he did not know how his members would vote on abolishing the Family Court system. But he said there are many questions to be answered if the law is repealed, especially how the present cases will be handled. He noted there are proposals before the Legislature for a study of the system.

On the other bill involving guardianship, Anderson said the legislation appears "meritorious" but additional witnesses must be heard.