Columnist Jeff German: Looking for justice at courthouse

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 | 10:52 a.m.

For a long time now many of the 150 workers in Las Vegas Justice Court haven't been happy campers.

The poor morale has strained relations with the justices of the peace and hindered the overcrowded court's ability to deal effectively with the public.

Justice Court is important because this is where people charged with crimes are introduced to the justice system.

Much of the employee unrest has its roots in an aborted attempt a year ago by the justices, all elected officials, to break a collective bargaining agreement with about 100 of the workers.

The effort was abandoned after County Manager Thom Reilly told the justices they would be violating federal labor law.

But the fallout, as reported here, was significant.

Justice of the Peace Tony Abbatangelo ended up stepping aside as chief judge, and the court's administrator, Marguerite Creel, was removed and offered a job elsewhere in the county.

In late October, Reilly, who oversees most of the Justice Court employees, brought in a consultant, ex-Family Court Administrator Christina Chandler, to try to clean up the mess. She's being paid $10,833 a month on a month-to-month basis which, so far, adds up to roughly $50,000.

But I'm told by employees, who are afraid to publicly identify themselves out of fear of retribution, that morale hasn't improved very much since Chandler arrived. Job stress is everywhere. And turnover is still high, with numerous positions waiting to be filled.

Even worse, the employees say, word is already out that the justices of the peace plan to make life even more difficult for the workers next year when the collective bargaining agreement expires.

"Don't think that we are just disgruntled," one Justice Court worker says. "We are not. Some of us really love our jobs here, but it is difficult to keep a clear head at times when people are being mistreated."

Reilly says he hasn't heard about the latest unrest in Justice Court, but he plans to look into it.

That would be a smart move.

If the workers in Justice Court can't find justice, we sure can't expect the public to find it.

Lawyers and politicians are often regarded as having the biggest reputations for stretching the truth.

And so it is all the more remarkable that Mayor Oscar Goodman, a lawyer and a politician, is now insisting that he cannot tell a lie.

But back in 1991, at a lavish Strip party celebrating his 25 years of practicing criminal defense law, he did admit to telling at least one lie.

At the end of the party, the flamboyant Goodman, known for defending some of the country's top mobsters, handed out a white T-shirt featuring a caricature of his face on Mount Rushmore.

Printed in black lettering above the caricature was, "The Greatest Lie of the 20th Century: 'There is no Mafia' -- Oscar B. Goodman."