Wednesday, Dec. 11, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Jerry Carr Whitehead wants the nation's highest court to let him intervene in petitions already filed by Nevada Supreme Court Justices Thomas Steffen and Charles Springer.
Steffen and Springer asked the court in October to throw out an order signed by justices Bob Rose, Miriam Shearing and Cliff Young that blocked the probe into 1993 leaks to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet decided whether to schedule a hearing on the Nevada dispute. The court gets more than 5,000 requests to handle appeals of state court decisions each year, and hears fewer than 100.
In the latest filings, Whitehead's attorney, Laura FitzSimmons, said the judge's retirement was "the direct result of the leaks" and "the resultant devastation of his professional reputation and family's peace of mind."
Whitehead quit his District Court post last January as part of a deal with the U.S. Justice Department to avoid federal prosecution on undisclosed charges. He now is a private attorney in Reno and Elko.
The Review-Journal reported in October 1993 that the Nevada Supreme Court had issued a secret order blocking a Judicial Discipline Commission investigation into complaints filed against Whitehead.
District Judges Brent Adams and Peter Breen accused Whitehead of holding unauthorized meetings with lawyers and bullying attorneys who sought to move cases to other judges.
Whitehead told the U.S. Supreme Court in the latest filing that his rights will be nullified if the investigation is not reopened.
"The court is the only forum in which Judge Whitehead can seek the restoration of what has been taken from him in violation of the 14th Amendment's due process clause," FitzSimmons states in the documents.
Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa last week filed papers with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing Whitehead's intervention.
"In this filing, Whitehead exhibits remarkable arrogance for one who has agreed with the United States to retire from office and never again to serve in any judicial capacity in consideration of the government's agreement not to prosecute him," the attorney general said in documents prepared by assistant Attorney General Brooke Nielsen.
Nielsen said Whitehead lacks standing to intervene because he has no personal stake into whether an investigation into news leaks is conducted.
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