District judges vote against keeping unfavorable stats

Bill Gang

Thursday, Oct. 14, 1999 | 10:19 a.m.

Statistics that can show which District Court judges are perceived by lawyers to be unfair or otherwise undesirable for some cases are no longer being kept.

Clark County's district judges voted at their monthly meeting Wednesday to prohibit County Clerk Shirley Parraguirre from keeping the information about which civil and family judges are kicked off cases by attorneys.

In Nevada, attorneys who don't want to appear before an assigned judge for virtually any reason can simply bump the judge once for a $200 fee. Such cases are then randomly reassigned.

Each side has that right in every case providing no rulings have been made by the judge -- a requirement that prevents disgruntled litigants from ousting a judge because of what they perceive is a bad ruling.

There is no similar right to challenge a judge in a criminal case, although in any type of case a change of judge can be sought if it can be shown there is a conflict of interest or actual bias.

Much of the rationale for keeping the statistics secret, according to comments from the judges Wednesday, involved concern that judges might learn who bumped them and rule against them the next time they are in court.

Allegations of that kind of abuse were directed several years ago at a Northern Nevada judge, who was charged in disciplinary proceedings with calling clients of lawyers who filed the so-called "preemptory challenges" and criticizing the attorneys for the maneuver.

That caused the Nevada Supreme Court to state that judges should distance themselves from the information on the challenges.

There have been no similar allegations against Southern Nevada judges, and Wednesday's 11-2 vote seemed aimed at preventing that possibility in the future.

But the records can also be an indication of which judges are perceived to be problematic, and the vote has the effect of limiting public scrutiny.

District Judge Michael Cherry -- one of the two dissenting judges along with Family Court Judge Bill Voy -- said, "These are statistics the public is entitled to know. We shouldn't be hiding these from the public."

Chief Judge Lee Gates cautioned that revealing preemptory challenge information "can lead to abuse."

District Judge James Mahan agreed, stating he doesn't see "one good feature out of keeping this type of statistic."

But in a 1997 investigative series by the Sun into the oft-criticized Family Court, the preemptory challenge statistics were telling.

The records showed that Judge Fran Fine was bumped from cases more often than the five other judges combined. Fine eventually was ordered removed from the bench by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline.

Preemptory challenge statistics actually haven't been kept for more than a year because the judges instructed then-County Clerk Loretta Bowman to destroy the records, Parraguirre stated.

At their meeting, the judges did not discuss the option of keeping statistics on which judges are challenged without retaining information about which lawyers exercised the challenges.