Witnesses testify in secret, for and against judge

Sam Skolnik

Tuesday, July 17, 2007 | 7:17 a.m.

Most of the major players were there at the Sawyer State Office Building downtown, waiting their turn to testify before the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission on the fate of District Judge Elizabeth Halverson.

The commission was meeting to decide whether to suspend Halverson while it weighed filing formal charges against her.

The hearing was held behind closed doors, and no one would confirm what occurred inside. But from the outside, the grim looks on the face of witnesses and principals going into and out of the hearing room suggested the gravity of the case.

Halverson was there of course, bedecked in a pink linen ensemble and accompanied by a large coterie, including three attorneys and several current court staffers.

One by one, former Halverson staff members and others were escorted to the hearing room to recount their tales of Halverson's treatment of them. Most then left quietly through a different door.

Those witnesses included veteran District Judge Stewart Bell, who counseled Halverson on proper court etiquette only to have that advice allegedly spurned. Former bailiff Johnnie Jordan, judicial executive assistant Ileen Spoor and others plied court officials with accounts of abuse, from name-calling to demanded foot rubs to mandatory predawn, hours long waits by the courthouse elevator, robes in hand, for her honor to arrive.

Also disappearing into the hearing room were attorneys who have appeared before Halverson in court, including Chief Deputy District Attorney Elissa Luzaich, whose prosecution of a child molestation suspect went bust after the judge held an improper chat with jurors as they deliberated.

And there were several others, including one man whose testimony just lasted a few minutes, but whose public statement afterward lent a touch of theater of the absurd. "I'm not a crook! I'm not a crook!" he said, his hands and first two fingers raised in a victory sign, a la Richard Nixon.

Halverson's attorneys last week filed an emergency petition to try to prevent the commission from suspending her. The court refused their motion Monday and allowed the hearing to continue.

The commission's special prosecutor in the case is former Washoe County District Attorney Dorothy Nash Holmes. Defense lawyers Dominic Gentile and Bill Gamage of Las Vegas and John Arrascada of Reno were there representing Halverson.

Because of the secretive nature of the commission's proceedings, there was no way by late Monday afternoon to tell what they chose to do, or whether they decided to put the matter - the most closely watched judicial disciplinary proceedings in recent Nevada history - on hold as they weighed the evidence.