Columnist Sandy Thompson: Don’t judge a judge by marital status

Sandy Thompson

Saturday, Oct. 28, 2000 | 3:43 a.m.

Sandy Thompson is vice president/associate editor of the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached at 259-4025 or e-mail at thompson@lasvegassun.com

ALTHOUGH they have drawn little media attention, three races in the Nov. 7 election are among the most important.

The winners will fill the three new seats on Family Court. Chances are that you or someone you know will be affected by a Family Court decision at some point in your life.

Yet a good number of voters know little about the candidates. And judicial ethics preclude candidates from taking stands on some issues.

Although all are attorneys, none of the candidates have been on the bench. So voters can only surmise what their performance may be, based on their court experiences and involvement in family law issues.

The Las Vegas Sun, after interviewing all the candidates, last week endorsed William Henderson, Cheryl Moss and Beth Wachsman. Based on their experience and responses to questions about Family Court, the Sun believes they will serve the voters well.

All the candidates generally agree that the seven-year-old court is still evolving. They cite the need for fairer and more consistent rulings; streamlined procedures to shorten litigation; a strong presiding judge; more uniform rules; and creating an atmosphere in which the judges work as a cohesive unit to better serve families and children.

A judge's bottom-line job, though, is to apply the law. Sometimes the law is open to individual judges' interpretations, which results in inconsistent rulings. That has been a major criticism of Family Court.

How these new judges will understand and apply the law, and the depth of their desire to do the job, should be the key points in considering who to vote for.

However, one of the candidates for the Department I seat, Phil Beuth, has made an issue of his opponent's marital status. In his TV ad and in interviews, he points out that Cheryl Moss is single with no children. The implication here is that she would not be able to make decisions about families.

Although Beuth has good ideas about Family Court, his campaign tactic to sway voters to his side may backfire. If you follow his implied logic that a married person is better equipped to handle Family Court matters, how do you explain the fact that most, if not all, of the sitting Family Court judges are divorced. Does their marital status determine how good or bad their decisions will be? Will a married judge apply the law differently than a single or divorced judge?

The fact that Moss doesn't have children doesn't mean she won't be able to decide the best interest of a child in custody cases.

The three new judges will help their eight colleagues handle the backlog of cases clogging up Family Court. So the new judges will have to hit the ground running. They will need stamina and a strong knowledge of the law. They also should have a human side, recognizing that they will be dealing with people at the worst points of their lives.

There are many Family Court issues to consider in this campaign, as the candidates have noted above. Marital and parental status should not be one of them.