Halverson suspension seen as what works

Sam Skolnik

Thursday, July 26, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.

District Judge Elizabeth Halverson's suspension Wednesday may or may not prove that Nevada's system of electing judges is badly out of date.

It may or may not show that Nevadans are willing to look on the half-year of Halverson's alleged goofs and abuses as wreckage worth tolerating to preserve the right of citizens to elect their judges.

One thing it does show, said lawyers and judges interviewed by the Sun: The system sometimes does work, and work quickly; an unqualified judge, once elected to office, can be tossed by court overseers.

"It's a very sad day for the judiciary," Clark County District Attorney David Roger said. "The public's confidence in it must be shaken."

He said judges and court administrators would have to work hard to repair the public's faith in their elected judges.

Craig Walton, president of the Nevada Center for Public Ethics, said the episode calls for changes to Nevada's judicial conduct code. The American Bar Association's new model code deal s specifically with how judges treat their staffs and others in the courthouse , as well as the broader population.

Nevada might want to consider adopting that notion into its code, Walton said.

"It's very important that a judge come across to everyone in the room and in the community as someone of integrity," he said.

Walton declined to echo what one court administrator said months back about Halverson being a "poster child" for changing the way Nevadans select their judges.

But he did say that as long as we have public elections, it is vital that voters become better informed about the candidates - and that public officials in the judicial system do what they can to help them.

"I can't believe," he said, "that the public would have a good idea as to what the criteria are for electing good judges - and then elect bad ones."

As news of Halverson's suspension spread late Wednesday afternoon, it elicited a variety of reactions in the legal community.

Some were flabbergasted by the range of reasons the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission included in its 27-page final interim suspension order - which tells of Halverson falling asleep on the bench, of her abusing her staff with sexual overtures and religious slurs, of her having her husband sworn in to answer questions under oath about "certain duties" she expected him to perform as part of their marital relationship.

Others were pleased that the commission acted quickly to remove Halverson from the courthouse. She had until 5 p.m. Wednesday to leave, and according to a court administrator, she made the deadline.

The commission has been investigating Halverson since April, when a complaint initially was lodged against her. The next month, the commission filed its initial suspension order, which she appealed, leading to a closed-door July 16 hearing and Wednesday 's "final" interim order.

The commission hasn't filed formal, public charges against Halverson, in which it could call for her permanent removal from office.

District judges were reluctant to publicly criticize a suspended colleague.

One judge, who asked not to be identified , said the commission's report was "amazing, unbelievable. It's mind-boggling."

The better news, the judge said, has been the performance of the commission, which has faced criticism for the speed at which it has acted against allegedly misbehaving judges.

"By dealing with this in the time frame that they dealt with it, I feel much better about the process," the judge said.

Another judge, also reluctant to speak on the record, concurred: "From a standpoint of efficiency, they've moved at light speed."

That judge also expressed relief: For weeks, the judge has been receiving Halverson's overflow cases from attorneys who have asked that their matters be removed from her court.