12/22/06 - Summary of First Meeting of the "Article 6 Commission"
provided by Dr. Walton
This past week was the first of a year more for meetings of the
"Article 6 Commission", which has been appointed by the Nevada Supreme
Court to look at a wide range of topics about the judiciary in Nevada.
You may have seen K C Howard's piece in the RJ,
[ Dec. 20, 2006 Las Vegas Review-Journal Commission begins discussing ways to revamp court system : Judge selection, campaign fundraising, new appellate court top agenda
By K.C. HOWARD ]
which included Juli Alexander's objections to the meeting.
My own report:
[1] the Commission needs to look at staffing of the courts, since
the workloads in Nevada range from average to greatly over the average
(in Clark County). There are not enough judges, too often. Also most of
the states have an appellate level, after district court but before
supreme court; we do not. Information was shared as to why we need an
appellate level and what that would do to workloads, time till trial,
and so too the needs of the people seeking relief in the courts.
[2] We were informed (as many of you already knew) that Sen.
Raggio is sponsoring a bill concerning judicial selection,
advocating the "Nevada Plan" (ask me for details if you want them).
So the Commission's next meeting, in February, will discuss and decide
whether to recommend to the 2007 legislature any action on these 2
items ( [1] and [2] ), since they require action by the legislature or
, for [1], a Constitutional amendment.
[3] We discussed the harmful impact of money-chasing on the image
and reality of judges' conduct of their office. The Raggio bill would
change a good deal of that, and another bill, about filing for judicial
office, would also change it for the better (again, ask me for details
if you wish).
[4] But more deeply (and not reported in the RJ),, we discussed the
Code of Judicial Conduct, and already have been given the ABA's Model
Code which might lead to some strengthening of Nevada's. In this
context I also brought up the ABA Standing Committee on Judicial
Independence study of the harm of money-chasing to the American
judiciary, titled, "Justice in Jeopardy".
[5] Further, and not reported in the RJ, we then discussed the
education and training of judges, professional development workshops in
judicial ethics, and the need to study annual performance evaluation of
judges. Dr. Dressel of the Judicial College shared with us a new University of Denver study about how this can be one.
[6] Other issues include changing the size of the supreme court if
the appelate level is created, and the distribution of kinds of civil
cases and criminal cases in Clark, Washoe, and the rural counties.
One topic that crosses all of these is that in years past, when people
have carefully studied a Nevada need and offered a proposal, there has
been no educational outreach to explain and justify in normal language
just why this or that is being recommended. Some voices, such as the
RJ, have opposed some changes (such as an appelate court) as just
another waste of taxpayer dollars and another layer of government. But
no voices have been heard on the "pro" side of such recommendations. My
own view was that we ought to create an Article 6 Commission website,
where the public could learn of the issues we work on, the sources we
use, and when recommendations are reached, just why and what they are.
It was a long meeting, 10 am - 3:30 or so. There had not been any
public comment period scheduled because this was to be a get-acquainted
and planning meeting (no substantive decisions were made). But Chief
Justice Rose did call on 3 people from the public who spoke up on
various issues; we adjourned before 4 pm.
