Coumnist Sandra Thompson: Judge Gaston’s style reason for change

Saturday, Sept. 9, 2000 | 2:33 a.m.

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

PUBLICLY, Judge Bob Gaston's move from the juvenile bench stemmed from philosophical differences.

Privately, the reassignment was based more on style.

Gaston is passionate about children and steadfast in his beliefs about how best to rehabilitate juvenile offenders. He strongly believes in the youth drug court, and proudly touts its effectiveness.

But it's the way he went about making decisions and setting policies that prompted five of his colleagues to vote for the change in Juvenile Court leadership. Beginning in January, Gaston's duties will be divided between Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle, who will take over child abuse and neglect cases, and Family Court Presiding Judge Dianne Steel, who will handle delinquency cases. Gaston will return to hearing domestic relations cases.

Traditionally the Juvenile Court judge has been sort of a lone wolf in a silent corner of Family Court. While the other judges tackled the higher-profile -- and highly charged -- divorce and custody cases, the juvenile judge handled more confidential matters.

That has changed and more attention is being paid to the juvenile arena because of two major factors: Juvenile delinquency cases became public record and the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), which mandates strict guidelines on permanency planning for foster care children, will require many changes in the way matters are handled.

In addition, the Family Court judges have been working to become a more cohesive unit. When Family Court began in 1993, there were six judges. They were not a particularly collegial group, and court insiders complained that the judges couldn't get a quorum for their monthly meetings where they discussed policies and issues.

Two new judges were added, and Judge Gloria Sanchez, who served as presiding judge then, was credited for bringing the group together. Judges were attending their meetings.

Faced with the addition of three more judges in January -- bringing the total to 11 -- the court recently has been reviewing its procedures and discussing reassignments to best utilize its resources.

Steel, whose term as presiding judge has been extended to December 2002, has been trying to build public confidence in the court by working with the other judges to improve cooperation and make the court system more efficient and more responsive to people.

Which brings us back to Gaston and his reassignment.

Gaston may have withstood the recent public criticism of his handling of juvenile delinquency cases if he had consulted with -- and had gotten the support of -- the other Family Court judges.

But there is much more to the issue than that. For more than a year there have been major concerns about his decisions not only in selected delinquency cases but also in several controversial foster care cases that were profiled here.

Although noting his concern for children, critics say Gaston wanted to set policy and legislate from the bench instead of adjudicate cases. They also question his direction to workers on implementing the new ASFA requirements.

When asked about some of his decisions, Gaston's attitude was that he rules a certain way "because I can." That did not sit well with officials who were posing the questions.

To his credit, Gaston took the high road last week in dealing with his reassignment. He simply stated his disappointment and defended his rulings as being in the kids' best interests.

Change is nothing new for Gaston, a former educator and legislator. In August 1997 he resigned as presiding Family Court judge because of disagreements with his colleagues on the direction he was taking. One judge noted that Gaston was making decisions "without regard for judges having differing views." At the time, Gaston said the allegation was unfounded.

Three years later the same concerns prompted his reassignment from the juvenile bench.

He evidently didn't get the message.