Jon Ralston notes the striking similarities in the cases of Elizabeth Halverson and former Controller Kathy Augustine

By Jon Ralston (contact)

Sunday, Sept. 16, 2007 | 1:27 a.m.

It was a familiar scene.

Aggressive attorneys Dominic Gentile and John Arrascada were defending a much-mocked and caricatured elected official before a tribunal that could end her career. They were lambasting the unfairness of the process more than the allegations against their client. Their argument was simple: This isn't about whether you like or respect her; it's what is being done to her is outrageously wrong.

The venue last week was a state Supreme Court hearing on whether Elizabeth Halverson should be reinstated as a District Court judge. But it could just as easily have been three years ago in front of the state Senate, when Gentile and Arrascada argued that Kathy Augustine should be reinstated as state controller.

Whether they are as successful with Halverson as they were with Augustine - she was impeached and convicted but allowed to keep her job - the messages of these cases are eerily similar:

Message No. 1: Just because they are out to get you doesn't mean you are not guilty.

Message No. 2: Just because you are guilty doesn't mean the punishment process is fair.

Augustine clearly was guilty of using her office for campaign work - just as many elected officials have done and are doing today. But she had the misfortune of getting caught, and of being one of the most disliked politicians in state annals.

That combination prov ed toxic to her political career, as a Democratic-controlled Assembly couldn't wait to impeach her, and only her GOP pals in the Senate, guided by the furious legal arguments of Gentile and Arrascada, saved her from losing her elected job.

Now comes the case of Halverson, a judge who is not loathed the way Augustine was but who is the butt of as many jokes as the controller who was killed by her husband. The allegations about Halverson are multifarious, including sleeping in court, abusing her employees and generally behaving in a bizarre manner.

Let's stipulate that if everything said about Halverson is true, then she is a seriously disturbed individual who should be in therapy but probably not judicial robes. But is it her alleged execrable behavior that has brought her here or a long-running feud with the Hardcastle judicial family? Is it the allegation she had a court employee rub her feet or her less-than-prim-and-proper appearance that made it easier for this case to move forward - just as Augustine's lack of decorum and dearth of allies made her impeachment a fait accompli?

Like the state Ethics Commission that first found Augustine had violated state laws, the Judicial Discipline Commission is a strange bird, a body most people don't know exists and one that has arcane rules that allow it to operate in secret and take months to issue formal charges.

In his argument before the high court last week, Arrascada portrayed the discipline commission as some kind of Star Chamber that does not follow due process and basic principles of fairness - similar arguments that he and Gentile made for Augustine.

The more serious issue here, as it was with Augustine, is whether an elected official should be removed from office for what, if put in perspective, are relatively minor infractions. The most disturbing allegations against Halverson are that she held ex parte discussion with juries, which would be a flagrant abuse of power. But do we think that other judges don't abuse their staffs, maybe fix traffic tickets and tell really bad jokes? I bet a few actually snore on the bench occasionally during an interminable court proceeding.

The precedential nature here cannot be overlooked. As Gentile told Channel 8's Mark Sayre, "They (the justices) have done a lot of thinking about this case and they should because this is a case that will dictate the future and really impact upon the independence of the judiciary."

It's always interesting to watch politicians put in the position of having to punish other politicians - and I wonder how many of these justices, who should not run for office but do in good ol ' Nevada, are saying to themselves, as Augustine's judges surely did, too, "There but for the grace of God go I."

I wonder.

I expect to have this sense of deja vu again, and sooner rather than later. Perhaps the next case for Gentile and Arrascada is arguing to the high court justices that ex-Commissioner Lynette Boggs , while not exactly beloved, really shouldn't have been convicted of living in someone else's district because she is being singled out and some folks were out to get her.