Sunday, March 16, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Pervasive criticism and public protests about Clark County Family Court have so smudged the image of the judiciary that requests to the Legislature for new judges anywhere in the system may be rejected.
"Now that they are taking heat, no one wants to fund new judges," District Judge Lee Gates said last week at the monthly meeting of Clark County judges. "It's jeopardizing any new general jurisdiction judges."
The Legislature is being asked to authorize three new Family Court judges and three for the general jurisdiction courts that handle civil and criminal cases.
It is the first time in more than a dozen years that new general jurisdiction judges have been sought to deal with the mushrooming civil caseloads and the ever more serious criminal problems in Las Vegas -- even though the creation of the six-judge Family Court four years ago to deal with domestic cases took a major burden off other district judges.
The debate over additional judges has opened the door to the larger issue of how judges are assigned and used, and who should be in charge of that.
The controversy centers on two issues:
* Should the Clark County court system be given a certain number of judges and then allow the judges to decide whether they should be assigned to civil, criminal or family cases? Or should that remain in the hands of the Legislature?
* Should there be a rotation system so that every judge spends some time in each of the three areas to prevent burnout and to offer fresh approaches to litigants' problems?
At last week's meeting, some district judges said it is time to revamp the system so all judges are on an equal footing and allowed to handle any type of case. They say that rotating judges into Family Court would also diffuse criticism from domestic litigants and even raise the quality of candidates running for judicial slots.
Other judges are adamant in wanting to keep Family Court -- with its often messy divorces, long hours and public criticism -- at arm's length.
Despite exchanges that sometimes seemed only to widen the schism between the courts, the issue wasn't decided. It will be discussed again at next month's meeting.
For decades before Family Court was created, district judges voiced their disdain for domestic law and the seemingly irreconcilable dilemmas involved.
Part of the reason for creating Family Court was to provide an arena for the resolution of domestic disputes by compassionate judges who had an interest in those types of cases.
General jurisdiction judges applauded that.
But faced with the possibly adverse impact on the judiciary as a whole, some judges are rethinking the issue.
"To me, the big problem is that judges shouldn't be permanently assigned to Family Court," said District Judge Jeff Sobel.
He and newly elected District Judge Kathy Hardcastle pointed to the imminent split of the general jurisdiction courts, with judges specializing in civil or criminal cases. That system, set to go into effect July 1, would permit rotation from one to the other.
Currently, general jurisdiction judges handle civil and criminal cases.
"The same reasons to rotate from civil to criminal are the reasons judges should rotate to Family Court," said Hardcastle, whose husband is Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle.
"Most judges really don't want to go to Family Court," Sobel conceded. "But it's part of the job and, in the long term for the 21st century, it will be good for the system."
Chief District Judge Myron Leavitt has said there is a "burnout" factor among Family Court judges who must deal day after day with families' most intimate suffering. He has advocated for years that judges be rotated.
"Those are the worst kinds of cases," Leavitt said. "No good things happen down there. Divorce is bad."
Judge Gerald Hardcastle admitted that some Family Court judges there "have been overwhelmed ... demoralized." He said rotation "is not a bad idea."
But they acknowledge their opinions are in the minority.
Gates has argued that judges elected to Family Court have developed expertise in domestic law and are motivated to hear such cases. Judges forced into it may have neither.
Sobel contends that "you can learn everything you need to be a judge down there in a couple of weeks."
"It ain't rocket science," agreed a family law lawyer who asked not to be named.
Family Court Judge Steve Jones has commented that the burnout factor probably would be greater for judges involuntarily rotated into Family Court than for those who sought the assignment.
Longtime Las Vegas attorney George Foley Sr. quipped, "I'd go crazy being a Family Court judge all the time." But he said he feared that rotation would put the bureaucracy in charge of the judges.
At last week's meeting, District Judge Stephen Huffaker opposed rotation, stating that when Family Court was established it was agreed that it would be separate from civil-criminal courts.
District Judge Donald Mosley argued that continually rotating jobs would be "institutional chaos" because of the difficulty in transferring calendars from one judge to the next.
Specialization, Mosley said, would allow judges to develop expertise "rather than trying to be all things to all people."
Family Court Judge Cynthia Dianne Steel also opposed rotation, declaring that the domestic arena needs the consistency of long-term judges. She said she personally wouldn't look forward to handling civil or criminal cases.
Under the planned civil-criminal split, six of the 16 general jurisdiction judges will handle civil cases while eight will specialize in criminal cases. There will be a chief judge and District Judge Jack Lehman will continue presiding over Drug Court.
Although some judges downplay it, a schism has developed between the family and general jurisdiction courts because of the seemingly unequal workloads, the power they have and the prestige -- or lack of it -- that the assignments carry.
While the general jurisdiction judges have the right to handle domestic cases, Family Court judges cannot legally step outside that arena.
As a result, Family Court judges have come to view themselves somewhat as "junior judges." Some civil-criminal judges, along with many lawyers, seem to agree.
Family Court Judge Terrance Marren calls it a "class distinction."
Yet Family Court judges are part of the District Court system, with the same $100,000 annual salary and many of the same duties, responsibilities and standards as the civil-criminal judges.
Marren noted that he and his colleagues spend about seven hours a day on the bench and implied that general jurisdiction judges don't measure up.
At the meeting, he made a motion that at least half of any new judges allocated to the Clark County courts be assigned to Family Court, and if there is an odd number of judges authorized, Family Court should get the extra judge.
"We are drowning; we need help," Marren said.
But the vote was 12-8 against the motion.
When Family Court was created, the Legislature decided the judges should be elected directly to those positions, rather than rotated out of the general jurisdiction District Court.
District Judge Gene Porter, a former assemblyman, said the 63 legislators are capable of listening to taxpayers and deciding where judges need to be assigned.
"Why not let the Legislature decide?" Judge Lee Gates asked.
Family Court Judge Bob Gaston answered that the current system pits Family Court against general jurisdiction courts for limited resources.
"We shouldn't have to compete against one another," he said.
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