Court Opinion

ID: 9559633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:32:33.149517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:26.492083
License: Public Domain

Rose, J.,
concurring:
This is a motion for rehearing and reconsideration of our August 28, 1997, decision concluding that Justice Young was not disqualified from sitting on the motion to rehear this case. Our August 1997 decision did not revisit the merits of the case which had already been disposed of by an October 9, 1996 order dismissing appellant’s appeal and petition for writ of habeas corpus. The dissent acknowledges these facts, but then proceeds to reconsider previously resolved issues which were not raised by the appellant’s rehearing/reconsideration motion presently before this court.
The only rationale for Justice Springer’s decision to revisit previously resolved and unraised issues is apparently his desire to take yet another shot at two of his perceived enemies — Justice Young and the Nevada Attorney General — both of whom opposed the action taken by Justice Springer (along with a departed member of this court) against the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission.
Justice Springer demonstrated none of the high-minded conflict of interest principles stated in his dissent when he determined that even though an attorney and her law partner’s aggregate election campaign contribution to a judge was over $100,000, *668this fact was insufficient to disqualify that judge from participation in the contested selection of the attorney to a State Bar committee. See O’Brien v. State Bar, 114 Nev. 71, 952 P.2d 952 (1998). The attorney involved in the O’Brien case is the former law clerk and personal friend of Justice Springer. Justice Springer has consistently refused to disqualify himself from participation in motions to disqualify me filed by this attorney, even though his close relationship with this attorney is well known, as is his animus toward me. See Whitacre Inv. Co. v. State, Dep’t Transp., 113 Nev. 1101, 946 P.2d 191 (1997).
Justice Springer claims in his dissent that only a mere $10,000 contribution was involved in the O’Brien case. That is simply not true. When the contributions of the attorney whose election was challenged, Laura FitzSimmons, are added to those made by her husband and those made by or arranged by her law partner, we have close to $100,000 in contributions that were involved. FitzSimmons and her husband are listed as each contributing $10,000 in Judge Steve Jones’ 1996 Campaign Disclosure Forms filed with the Nevada Secretary of State. Kermitt Waters admitted to making large additional contributions in a motion to disqualify Justice Young filed on December 16, 1996, in the Whitacre case. In that motion, Waters stated as follows: “Kermitt L. Waters, his wife Jan Waters, and Nevada corporations owned by Mr. Waters contributed substantially to Judge Jones’ campaign. The approximate aggregate amount of campaign contributions from those sources is $75,000,000 [sic], Ms. FitzSimmons and her husband, John Lambrose, each contributed $10,000 to the Steve Jones campaign.” Whitacre Inv. Co. v. State, Dep’t Transp., Docket No. 29401 (Appellant’s Motion to Disqualify Justice C. Clifton Young at 4, December 16, 1996). By their own admission, Laura FitzSimmons and Kermitt Waters, with their spouses and through corporations they controlled, admit to contributing at least $95,000 to Justice Young’s opponent in 1996.
When this appeal from the denial of a writ of habeas corpus and post-conviction relief was disposed of in October of 1996, the issue of the improper preemption of prospective black jurors was carefully considered and rejected by a unanimous court. After analyzing the claim, this court, including Justice Springer, rejected the appellant’s racial assertion as being “not credible.” Now, Justice Springer’s opinion has shifted 180 degrees and he finds that those very same allegations present a compelling claim for summary reversal.
The only thing that has changed since our October 1996 resolution of this issue on the merits is that a motion to disqualify Justice Young has been denied; the disqualification motion *669challenged Justice Young’s participation in the rehearing of this case for the reason that the Attorney General had supported Justice Young in his re-election campaign. It is indeed alarming that Justice Springer is willing to abandon his decision in a death penalty case simply to continue his one-sided campaign of enmity against the Attorney General and a justice on this court.
The reason Justice Springer and the rest of this court found Nevius’ allegations of racism injury selection to be “incredible” is because they were raised many years after the racially repugnant statements were allegedly made, the prosecutor had no recollection of making any such statements and stated that he would not make such statements, and the state and federal district courts, in addition to the federal court of appeals all found that the peremptory challenges were exercised for a race neutral reason.
The prosecutor denied that he “racially stacked a jury” and, up until now, Justice Springer agreed that the evidence did not support such claims. Justice Springer’s new-found conviction that a black man is being executed because of the verdict of a “stacked jury” represents yet another effort in his quest to vilify his perceived long-standing enemies.
Regrettably, Justice Springer’s latest attacks do nothing more than discredit himself and our beleaguered judicial system.