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NCPE Town Hall Meeting Join us on June 28, 2008 for the Third NCPE Town Hall Meeting. NCPE in the News: 2008 "Casa Rosa's Days Numbered" (Las Vegas Review Journal) "Court Hopeful Says Consultant Pitched Deal" (Las Vegas Review Journal) "Given $50,000 He Decides to Run" (Las Vegas Sun) Acting President Julie Tousa on Jon Ralston's "Face to Face: Ethics Complaint" Meet the Acting President of NCPE, Julie Tousa "New Watchdog of Public Ethics Continues Enforcing Vital Unwritten Law" (Las Vegas Review Journal) "Partying Away As Taxpayers Pay and Pay" (Las Vegas Sun) Ethics Legislation 2007 NCPE at the 2007 Nevada State Legislature: Summary and Details "Article 6 Commission" to study and recommend improvements in the Nevada judiciary NCPE statement about the danger of big donors contributing to Supreme Court justice election campaigns. Judicial Ethics & the Complaint Processes Craig Walton's letter, to the Las Vegas Business Journal in favor of the new plan for judicial selection
Email NCPE Treasurer |
April 13, 2006 Dear Chief Justice Rose; The Common Cause/P.L.A.N. report of 2004 contributions to judicial candidates’ races provided alarming facts about the current process. Judges must solicit lawyers and litigants for money to finance election campaigns, and lawyers must either contribute or fear disfavor in future courtroom appearances. Nevadans feel a dangerous loss of confidence in the judiciary. We need to make changes in order to de-commercialize and de-politicize both the process by which judges are chosen and the setting in which they work. Without an impartial judiciary, our whole constitutional system of checks and balances fails. If judges must answer to the same “donors” and make the same trade-offs as must those in the executive and legislative branches (which are supposed to be ‘political’ offices), then our checks and balances are lost. Confidence in the fair application of our laws weakens. Our trust in the court system comes to be replaced by expectations of partisan or special-interest favoritism. Even the appearance of such indebtedness or politicization corrodes our confidence. Therefore we need to come up with a selection process which eliminates all financial or political pressures on the judiciary. (Of course this does not refer to the legislature allocating funding to the judicial system). Whom to appoint to such a Commission? We have studied the work you did in 1993 and 2003 on this issue. Today we suggest that the Commission be composed of voices of several groups: (a) one or two sitting Justices of the Supreme Court nominated by the Chief Justice, and at least two current or retired judges from different levels of the court system; (b) two sitting legislators from each house and each party in the Legislature (total four); (c) at least one faculty member from the Boyd School of Law (Dean Morgan suggests Prof. Stempel); (d) a faculty member from the Grant Sawyer Center for Justice Studies at UNR (perhaps Prof. Richardson); (e) two representatives of the Nevada State Bar; (f) several representatives from major business and labor organizations (perhaps four); and (g) a diverse selection of members of the general public including minority groups (four-six persons). Our Nevada Center for Public Ethics would be willing to supply one or two members of our Board of Trustees, if requested (list, attached). This Commission would total about eighteen to twenty-two Nevadans, both those who rely on the justice system and those whose lives are committed to it professionally. How would this Commission proceed? It will require staffing, perhaps to be developed in conjunction with the Boyd School of Law or also the Grant Sawyer Center for Justice Studies, so that needed video-conferencing, research assistance and organizational infrastructure will allow the commission to pull members together and work well both in its research and in its outreach, as it strives to complete its charge. As you know so very well, some of this work was begun in 1994 by your Judicial Assessment Commission (continued in 2003). Today, national organizations are developing proposals. Their resources can contribute to this work (e.g. the American Judicature Society, the National Center for State Courts, etc.). We realize the appointment and work of this commission could require a year or more to complete. The time is ripe, the need is widely recognized, and Nevada has the people to do it. Thank you for your consideration. Respectfully,
Judicial Selection Committee, Nevada Center for Public Ethics: Craig Walton |
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