Opinion ID: 1197759
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: master's interim report

Text: Pursuant to an order entered by the above-entitled court September 1, 1995, appointing Herbert F. Ahlswede Special Master of the Whitehead court, and requiring him from time-to-time to file interim reports with the Whitehead panel concerning his investigation, the following report is hereby submitted: 1. My investigation discloses what appears to have been an intentional and knowing disclosure of confidential matters relating to the Whitehead matter before the Judicial Discipline Commission. 2. My investigation to date reveals that this disclosure may involve members of a law firm, at least two members of the supreme court and the attorney general's office. My investigation, to date, does not point to the involvement of any members of the Discipline Commission, but I do not foreclose the possibility of this being the case should my investigation be permitted to continue. 3. The evidence gathered to date discloses a flurry of communication among those aforementioned persons and those involved in the confidential breach at and around the time of the first leak, October 10, 1993, when unnamed sources were reported to have revealed the confidential files relating to Judge Whitehead to an investigative reporter for a Las Vegas newspaper. The evidence, in the form of communications by FAX and telephone and telephone messages, reveals that possibly at least one member of the supreme court, presently unidentified members of the attorney general's office who were FAXing Whitehead materials to the law firm, members of the law firm, an investigative reporter for the Las Vegas newspaper, a reporter for a Reno newspaper, and an attorney who was representing the Discipline Commission, were involved in a conspiracy to unlawfully leak confidential information concerning the Whitehead investigation by the Discipline Commission. 4. My investigation discloses that evidence of the aforementioned communications, i.e. the telephone FAX records and telephone messages, were ordered destroyed at a time when it appeared that these records might be discoverable in any subsequent investigation into the source of the leaks. Notwithstanding the destruction order, those documents have been obtained. They appear related to the leak of confidential information. 5. I have also been made aware of a letter from a former member of the Attorney General's office indicating that the Attorney General told an assemblage of her deputies (including the author of the mentioned letter, in her Las Vegas Office, that [Senior Justice] ZENOFF'S appointment [to the Whitehead panel] proved that `the fix was in.' I can think of no more serious charge than that of a fixed court. Certainly, if the statement was made by the Attorney General, and it had any substance, she had the absolute duty to prosecute any so-called fixed members of the supreme court. The making of such a statement by the Attorney General and her reasons for making such a statement should be fully explored. Please keep in mind that this is only an interim report and not a final one. My investigation had just begun when JUSTICES YOUNG, ROSE and SHEARING ordered it terminated, before any conclusionary or final report could be submitted. Because my investigation is not complete and because I still harbor some hope that I might be allowed to continue in the search for truth, I offer to the court the present, necessarily incomplete report, which has not included the names of those persons who may be involved. My investigation cannot be considered any where near complete until I complete my intended work, which includes at minimum, the following: 1. Taking the deposition of certain clerical personnel and lawyers of the law firm involved. 2. Ascertaining who was faxing papers from the attorney general's office to the offices of the law firm involved. 3. Taking the deposition of all supreme court justices and some district court judges. 4. Examination of various involved law firm's records, including, at minimum, inspection of the computers used in the writing of documents and memoranda relating to the Whitehead case. 5. Examination of Supreme Court telephone and fax records. 6. A potential request for a federal inquiry into the influence that certain members of the law firm claim to have over a high federal prosecutorial official and of a mentioned FBI agent. At the time that JUSTICES YOUNG, ROSE and SHEARING signed the order purporting to terminate my authority, my next intended order of business was to interview all five of the supreme court justices. It was a matter of shock and outrage to me when I found that two of the justices who had signed the order were disqualified to act in the matter in which I had been employed. Recently, the same three justices (two of whom have been legally disqualified to act in any manner in the Whitehead case) have announced their intention to sign another three-justice order which would terminate entirely ongoing proceedings in a pending case. I realize that the three justices believe that the time has come and gone for the existence of the legally constituted panel in the Whitehead case. Nevertheless, it is beyond my understanding how this case can be extinguished by a stroke of the pen, particularly when it is the pen of jurists who are legally disqualified to act in this case. I dread to think of the precedent that this action takes, for I assume, in the future, any time that three elected justices deem the manner in which a panel handling a case is unsatisfactory to them, they will try again to wipe it out of existence. Respectfully submitted, /s/ Herbert F. Ahlswede Special Master