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Monday, February 12, 2007

Courts - "Jurists seal cases of colleagues: Litigants include relatives of those with ties to court"

A story this weekend from the Las Vegas Review-Journal begins:

Keeping from the public information about judicial colleagues or their relatives is among the uses Clark County judges have found for their authority to seal civil cases, given them by a Nevada Supreme Court decision 12 years ago.

Litigants whose cases have been sealed by District Court judges include a Clark County Family Court judge, a Las Vegas law firm with which a former state Supreme Court justice is associated, a medical practice owned by the husband of a former state Supreme Court justice, a lawyer who serves as a temporary judge on matters before the Supreme Court, and an MGM Mirage attorney who unsuccessfully ran for Las Vegas Municipal Court in 2003.

One of the litigants whose case was sealed is Hutchison & Steffen, a firm with which the author of the 1995 Whitehead Decision, on which judges now rely for authority to seal them, is associated. Thomas L. Steffen served on the Nevada Supreme Court from 1982 to 1997, and according to the firm's Web site is "of counsel" to the law firm partly owned by, and named for, one of his sons.

A little research has produced this goldmine (an apt characterization, as this is Nevada) of information about "The Whitehead Case."

Moreover, here is a story from from the Dec. 11, 2006 Las Vegas Review-Journal. A few quotes from the end of the long story:

Whitehead asked the Nevada Supreme Court to halt the investigation and to decide the case in secret, concealing not only the allegations and outcome, but the existence of the case.

His attorneys contended that since complaints to the Judicial Discipline Commission and its investigations were confidential, Whitehead could appeal in secret. After the Supreme Court agreed to the unprecedented secrecy, the Review-Journal revealed the case anyway.

The court unsealed the case but launched a sweeping effort to discover who leaked information to the newspaper.

The case resulted in the Supreme Court issuing new rules for the discipline commission and the Legislature increasing the panel's funding, making it stronger and more effective.

In August 1995, Whitehead agreed to resign in return for a promise he wouldn't face federal prosecution.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 12, 2007 02:03 PM
Posted to Courts in general