Bill would kill Family Court

Monday, May 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The much-criticized Clark County Family Court is beyond repair and should be abolished, says Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas.

"It's been a boondoggle," said Arberry, whose Ways and Means Committee agreed Friday to introduce a bill to eliminate the Family Court system in Clark County but leave it intact in Washoe County.

"The Judiciary Committee is rolling over to us a study about the family courts because of all the complaints and problems going on," Arberry said.

It would be a waste of taxpayer money for a study, he said. "It's so new ... why try to fix it? Just eliminate it."

He said this isn't about his divorce case, which was handled by the Family Court. And it's not about the case of his friend, Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, who is involved in a child support dispute.

"This bill is not what that is about," Arberry said. "I don't want them to think it is revenge."

The dissatisfaction, he said, is widespread. "I've never heard so many complaints about a court system," he said.

There are inconsistencies in decisions coming down, he said. The rulings, he said, "are all over the place."

There have been numerous complaints against the system, such as gender bias, with male judges ruling against women and female judges against men. Decisions are delayed and sometimes a divorce can take two years because of red tape.

Judges have been criticized for having improper communications with parties in the case. They have been accused of not reading the cases or taking enough time to investigate whether the allegations are true.

Citizens say some judges are arrogant and rude.

But Family Court Judge Terrance Marren said the judges know there are problems and they are working to solve them. The court hired Dan Wiley from Washoe County last fall as a consultant to help make improvements.

The Family Court is five years old "and we started from ground zero," Marren said. "It takes a little time. We've made heroic attempts against an ever-increasing caseload."

He said the judges in Las Vegas are willing to work with the Legislature on a proposed study and he thinks the lawmakers "will be impressed with the progress we have made."

Arberry said the Nevada Supreme Court and the district courts are run "more properly" and there hasn't been "the public outcry we're getting from the Family Court."

"Why spend public dollars to fix it?" Arberry asked. "We know the problem. Let's just eliminate it and start from scratch."

Leonard Gang, director of the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission, told legislative committees earlier this month that the commission receives more complaints about Family Court judges than those in other courts.

Assemblywoman Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, is having a bill drafted for a study of the Family Court system. And Chief Justice Miriam Shearing has indicated there would be a judicial study.

Marren said a case management model has been started to review cases that are more than one year old. If the case has been lingering, it is brought to the judge's attention in an attempt to get it resolved.

"Our goal is to comply with the American Bar Association standards and have work done in every divorce within one year of filing," said Marren, reached Friday at Lake Tahoe where he was attending a conference of the Nevada District Judges Association.

Other deadlines have also been set. Marren said 50 percent of the cases are now handled within 90 days. There's been some false information circulating, he said, involving some divorce cases.

A divorce case may have been closed in 1989, even before the court was created. But it is then reopened. The statistics show the case has been in the system for more than seven years.

The Family Court wants the Supreme Court to change the rules to permit judges to issue public explanations of cases when asked. Marren told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that the Family Court judges are under attack but they can't respond.

"I do not mean to suggest that a judge should stand on a soapbox and talk about a particular case when no one has raised any concern about the ruling of the court in that case," Marren said. "I am speaking about the need to clarify publicized misstatements of the record."

One of the most publicized and most criticized cases involved 16-year-old Tiffany Ambrose, who filed a petition with the court to change her guardianship from her parents to a family whose son was her boyfriend.

There were allegations that Marren and Kirby Burgess, director of Clark County Family and Youth Services, improperly discussed the case outside the court -- charges which both denied.

A bill has been approved by the Senate and is now before the Assembly Judiciary Committee to require notification of parents if teenagers want to switch guardians.

Even the proposed study of the court system generated controversy when it was disclosed that it would be used to give hefty pay raises to three Supreme Court justices and five Family Court judges who are making less than fellow jurists.

That raised protests from state legislators who said this was a way to circumvent the Nevada Constitution, which prohibits salary increases in midterm for judges.