Court Opinion

ID: 9795535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:30:52.996697+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:30:14.763521
License: Public Domain

Leavitt, L,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority that the failure of the Nevada State Bar Board of Governors to specifically name replacements for the disqualified members of the Judicial Discipline Commission violates article 6, section 21(2)(b) of the Nevada Constitution. The section clearly requires the Board of Governors to make a specific appointment to fill any vacancy, and the practice of naming a slate of twelve persons and delegating the authority to select alternates to the Executive Director of the Judicial Discipline Commission taints the entire proceeding.
The power to appoint members to the Judicial Discipline Commission is given by our constitution to three, independently elected authorities: the Nevada Supreme Court, the Governor, and the Nevada State Bar Board of Governors. This arrangement is designed to protect against the appointment of commissioners prejudiced against a judge being investigated. By allowing the executive director to make the selection, the guarantee of neutral*386ity is lost. Fairness requires that charges against an accused judge be heard by an impartial Commission.
I disagree with the majority that this fundamental error can be corrected merely by allowing the Board of Governors to appoint two new members to the Commission at this stage of the proceedings. Here, the dispute has progressed beyond the probable cause stage to the filing of a formal complaint of misconduct. Because two properly designated commissioners had not been appointed to decide the probable cause issue to support the filing of the charges, all of the actions taken by the Commission up to the filing of formal charges were in excess of its jurisdiction.
Other incidents occurred during these proceedings that individually may not warrant extraordinary relief, but the cumulative effect leaves a question as to the fairness of the whole process.
Specifically, the Executive Director hired an investigator who is the husband of one of the executive director’s employees. The petitioner claims this gives the investigator an incentive to prepare a biased report to please his wife’s employer. Although this does not necessarily imply the Commission would be biased against petitioner, an independent investigator would have been preferable.
Further, the prosecuting attorney for the Commission is required to sign under oath a formal statement of any charges made against a judge, and file the same with the Commission.1 This was not done in this case. The Commission agreed the complaint was not properly signed under oath, and in order to correct the error, instructed the prosecutor to swear under the penalty of perjury that the contents of the complaint were true. The filing of the formal statement of charges lifts the confidentiality and subjects a judge to adverse publicity.2 The requirement of an oath is intended to make sure the confidentiality of the proceedings is not lifted because of untrue, reckless and irresponsible charges. To be effective this oath must be contemporaneous with the filing of the formal charges, not subsequent thereto.
Other claims by petitioner — regarding the executive director’s statement to the news media, the timing of a commissioner’s recusal, the granting of media entry to the proceeding, and the combining of investigative and adjudicative functions — are all points in question but do not amount to a want of jurisdiction.
The petition should be granted, and a writ of prohibition issued preventing the Commission from proceeding under the current *387complaint. The Commission should begin anew with an independent investigation and with two new members of the Commission appointed by the Board of Governors pursuant to the Nevada Constitution.

NRS 1.467.

NRS 1.4683(1) states: “Except as otherwise provided in this section and NRS 1.4693, all proceedings of the commission must remain confidential until the commission makes a determination pursuant to NRS 1.467 and the prosecuting attorney files a formal statement of charges.”