COURTS:

As a judge becomes victim, attitudes might change — a little

Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Police release Halverson’s 911 call (with audio) (9-12-2008)
Judge sets bail at $113,000 for Edward Halverson (9-10-2008)

Will they applaud when she scoots through security? A so-sad-for-you smattering? A golf clap that — smack ... smack ... smack — swells into a standing ovation? A cheer for the villain come back as victim?

Probably not. But if you drink what court gossips are spilling at the water cooler this week, suspended District Judge Elizabeth Halverson’s return to the Regional Justice Center will have a much friendlier audience than her departure from the courthouse had. Feelings are softer than they were at the end of the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline hearings. The courthouse is awaiting the commission’s decision on whether her misconduct warrants a lifetime banishment from the bench.

The attorneys and officials who make up the scrappy courthouse society admit that if Halverson’s husband weren’t suspected of attempting to beat her to death after that last hearing, they’d still be annoyed with the woman whose yearlong suspension and highly publicized hearings for highly strange behaviors on the bench brought on a blitzkrieg of media.

Now, it seems, people feel they ought to at least flash her a sympathetic smile, even if it’s through clenched teeth.

Halverson is supposed to leave her hospital bed today to testify before the grand jury. She is to give her version of what happened Sept. 4, when her husband, Ed, reportedly came at her with a frying pan, swung it at her face and smacked part of her scalp off.

It’s this image of Halverson — whose size and sickness have confined her to an electric scooter with an oxygen tank, whose injuries caused her head to swell so much that she couldn’t see — that has softened harsh popular opinion of the judge into almost an apology.

Sure, they say, she wasn’t a great judge. And yes, we dried out our eyeballs watching that telenovela of a misconduct hearing. But nobody, they whisper, deserves to be bludgeoned to the brink of death with a cooking utensil. Elizabeth — Lizzie, if we might — has become a lot more sympathetic now that she’s a victim of crime. And this newfound sympathy is a fact of human nature as obvious and depressing as the reason the media became obsessed with Halverson in the first place — the way she looks. Spanish-language media dropped all pretense and referred to her as the “jurista gigante,” the giant judge.

The fact that she’s accused of ordering a bailiff to massage her feet was just icing on the cake.

Ever since her hospitalization for critical injuries, Halverson has become a lot more quiet. And so here’s the second stratum of gossip: Halverson could blow all her “injury equity” if she slips back into the combative tyrant colleagues learned to loathe. Some courthouse observers think Halverson’s stock is high enough to protect her from permanent removal from the bench — if she plays her cards right.

Most, however, think that’s a laughable notion — Halverson could be beaten with five frying pans and a meat tenderizer and she’d still be short the sympathy it would require to convince the Commission on Judicial Discipline she should ever be allowed near a jurist’s robe again. Chief Judge Kathy Hardcastle, who had Halverson locked out of her chambers and barred from the courthouse last year, would not comment on whether Halverson’s victim status will win her some kind of sympathy.

Luke Ciciliano, the attorney representing Halverson in a federal case to halt her disciplinary hearing, as well as a case involving the suspended judge and a former employee, said he hoped Halverson’s injuries would at least help the world remember she’s a human being.

“I sincerely hope that her current situation helps everyone step back and look at her complete situation,” he said.

So now for the third, and nastiest, bit of courthouse gossip: She’s not sympathetic at all, because she was asking for it.

Naturally, nobody who said as much wants his name printed, but the logic goes like this: Halverson was heinous to her husband, who tended to her every need. It’s common knowledge she was cruel to him, that she berated him in public, called him an idiot and worse. One court filing reveals she had a court clerk swear in Ed Halverson “to answer questions about matters related to certain duties she expected him to perform in the course of their marital relationship.” Her former bailiff has alleged the judge told him to shoot her husband. Other court transcripts indicate she called him names that aren’t fit to print. And when the TV news crews showed up outside the Halverson home on the night of the attack, just in time to catch shots of Ed being escorted, shirtless and dazed, to the back of a police car, neighbors who were interviewed gave the guy credit for putting up with her as long as he did.

One neighbor said Halverson could “be a nasty.” Who knows what she’ll be now.

Abigail Goldman can be reached at 259-8806 or at abigail.goldman@lasvegassun.com.

Discussion: 8 comments so far…

By homer

9/23/08 at 7:56 a.m.

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I will bet Halverson has learned to keep her insulting big mouth shut now. Sometimes you reap what you sow.
By bobbitackett

9/23/08 at 8:46 p.m.

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Just think for one tiny moment if only a 1/2 of a story was told about you. You knew with all that is right, that people would feel totally different if they could hear the other half of the story. But important people control the press and the media, and they aren't going to let anyone hear the whole story. You the public know that this kind of thing happens. So stop making judgments on half a story. People ask me why I stand by Judge Halverson, it's because I know the other half of the story, and I will stand by her until the whole truth is told. I ask every decent person out there not to judge someone for the way they look, and half stories you have been told. I feel sorry for you homer but I bet that's not who you really are.
I'm not ashamed to sign my name because I know the truth.
Bobbi Tackett
By geezelouise

9/23/08 at 9:03 p.m.

Suggest removal

There is so much more to this story than what is beuing told.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.
By R_Linn

9/23/08 at 11:42 p.m.

Suggest removal

OK, if there is "so much more to this story" then why don't you clue us in?
By bobbitackett

9/24/08 at 7:14 a.m.

Suggest removal

Read the comment on the side of POST A COMMENT; let's see if they edit my comment.
Some of the neighbors that really cared and respected the Judge made comments the night of the attack, but only the mean ones were reported. Why?
I never said Judge Halverson didn't make mistakes. All I asked for was for the public to be able to read the emails that Ilene Spoor left on her computer, to understand there was a plot to destroy the Judge. I have worked for maybe 16 of the Judges in Family Court and Downtown, and trust me there are many of them that treated their staff way worse then Judge Halverson did. She should have gotten rid of Justice Cherry's staff and started with her own.
Yes she made mistakes, on the bench, but nothing other Judges haven't made. OK, maybe no one else called in their own security. But even that is understandable with what was going on. The geek call was my idea. Ilene had written to Judge Bell asking what she should do with a piece of Federal Mail addressed to Judge Halverson, from the Bar Association asking her to fill out a form about the law clerk. Judge Halverson never got the Federal Mail addressed to her yet the Bar Association got the form back filled out. The answer if Judge Bell gave Ilene one was erased. I knew I.T. would not help Judge Halverson dig it out. But when the Geek told us it wouldn't be legal, judge paid him and he left. By the way when the Judge tried to subpoena that form they wouldn't give it to her. In another email Ilene was told by Judge Sally Loher her job was the safest in the County and they did keep their promise Ilene still has a job.
THEY ARE SAYING MY COMMENT IS TO LONG I'M GOING TO TRY TO DO IT IN TWO.
By bobbitackett

9/24/08 at 7:18 a.m.

Suggest removal

Have any of you looked up some of the other records on errors. Gosh one of them is sitting on the Supreme Court, has more reversal then any other Judge.
Johnny Jordon, come on if that man was telling the truth on the stand, do you really think he would be the kind of man that would stand for someone making him rub their feet. Most people I have talked to since he testified stopped believing a thing he said.
Why were the emails showing a conspiracy against the judge all inadmissible? Why were the tickets not allowed to be mentioned doesn't the public deserve to have all the facts. If any of you would have had the chance to read some of the comments with the original tickets Ilene proudly left sitting on her desk. In a folder she wrote on it QUICK FIX. Don't any of you wonder about those things what really happened to those tickets, I know I wonder? In fact on the way from the airport driving the Judges family to the hospital I got a ticket, her mother was crying because she wanted to get to the hospital to find out if her daughter was dead or alive and told the officer that. He took about a 1/2 hour to write the ticket, her mother tried to get out of the car to beg him to hurry, we were in a safe place I pulled into a carwash, but he told her not so nicely to get back in the car. I have always respected officers; I hope he didn't act that way because he was told who we were worried about. Yes, like ordinary folks I tried to take care of my ticket yesterday. After waiting in line, I was told after 3 weeks the officer still hadn't turned it in, and I would have to wait, call first make sure the ticket is there then wait in line again. And gosh I don't think Ilene likes me anymore so I don't think she would help me with my ticket.
At the Commission Hearing, why was the attorney from the court that admitted she accepted the subpoena's not held responsible for making sure the people showed up. It was the last day, come on this beautiful girl makes this grand entrance, she managed to get there why the people she accepted the subpoenas for didn't make it, but the court let her again humiliate the judge.
The truth about Ed Halverson will come out, and the neighbors that love the judge will be heard too.
I worked for Judges that fired someone from their staff, and I know how it was usually handled.
I just find it so sad that because Judge Halverson is so large, everyone thinks they have a right to humiliate and degrade her. What happened to some humanity?
I have tried to give the public provable facts before but they have never been printed, let's see what they do with this comment.
Bobbi Tackett
By PatriciaLV

9/24/08 at 8:01 a.m.

Suggest removal

So boiled down, your screeds amount to ... you like her & some of her neighbors like her and you have an awful lot of "conspiracy-tinted" questions. You've also managed to insert the "she's not the only one" non-defense/argument as well as pointing to someone who's had "more reversals". And claiming she's being discriminated against because of her weight?

Is this what you consider to be "the other side of the story"

You keep saying that you've "tried to give the public provable facts", but I haven't seen any.

Post your "provable facts". If your comments are deleted, we will know you tried to post something. They remove the comments, not the writer's tag to the right of the comments.

I don't really care how many of her neighbors like her, nor do I care about her weight issue; neither has any bearing whatsoever on her capacity as a sitting judge. The weight issue could be a factor depending on how difficult it is for her to get around. But I don't see that that's been the case; so it's not an issue at this time.
By redferret

9/24/08 at 9:18 a.m.

Suggest removal

Halverson has a lot of issues that simply cannot be ignored when dealing with her. Yes, it's bad and sad that her husband almost beat her to death with a frying pan. And no, that shouldn't happen to anyone.
With that said, one must question Halverson's judgment. For crying out loud, how...HOW do you, a judge, get married to man who routinely evades warrants, has been arrested multiple times for cocaine possession, and has had several other run ins with the law. Not to mention she has several questionable practices while sitting on the bench, such as speaking to a jury when none of the lawyers are present.
I'll be happy when she's removed and we no longer fund her idiocies with tax payer money.

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