Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022 | 10:49 p.m.
A Clark County judge ruled Wednesday that North Las Vegas must hold an election in 2022 for a judge it had appointed last year.
Judge Gloria Sturman sided with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada after it filed a lawsuit last month against the city for appointing Judge Christopher Lee to a six-year term for the North Las Vegas Municipal Court Dept. 1 instead of holding an election.
“Hopefully (the lawsuit) will be a check on future abuses of power by government officials,” said ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah.
North Las Vegas adopted an ordinance Feb. 17 2021, to create a new Municipal Court department — the Community Approach to Rehabilitation and Engagement (CARE) Court — and appoint Judge Christopher Lee to a six-year term to serve on the new court, skipping two full election cycles.
The court is a therapeutic treatment court to address underlying causes of defendants’ criminal behavior and seeks to reduce recidivism, according to North Las Vegas.
“The City of North Las Vegas created a new court to address the root causes of crime, reduce recidivism, and achieve meaningful social justice reform, which was requested and needed by our community,” said Patrick Walker, communications manager for the city, in an emailed statement to the Sun. “The City will do whatever it needs to do to enable this transformative court to continue to provide programming and services to residents in need.”
ACLU argued the city violated its own city charter, which mandates that when the city appoints a judge to fill a vacant position in the Municipal Court, the appointment cannot extend beyond the first day of the month following the next general municipal election.
Haseebullah said the organization felt from the very beginning that North Las Vegas City Council violated its own charter and had been trying to resolve the issue with the city for some time before it decided to file the lawsuit in December.
The ability to have a judge in place for six years only applies to elected judges, Haseebullah said. If there is a requirement to stagger terms, the judge must be up for election within the two years. At that election, they can determine if the judge’s term will be two years, four years or six years.
The lawsuit shows that governments must comply with the laws that they set forth, Haseebullah said, especially in respect to courts. Second, it shows that voters continue to have a right in the process of deciding which judge will serve them. And third, Haseebullah said, it shows the nature of backdoor dealing to have judges appointed is wrong.
“The reason why there are set terms for initial appointment is so that voters get to decide,” he said. “(North Las Vegas’ action) flies in the face of the ability of voters to pick someone of their choice. … City council members don’t get to pick their judges; voters get to pick their judges.”
When asked if the city will file an appeal of the judge’s decision, Walker said in a phone interview Thursday that the city is looking at all of its options. North Las Vegas Municipal Court declined to comment for the story.
North Las Vegas Assistant City Manager Delen Goldberg previously told the Sun that the city appointed Judge Lee to a whole new department and did not view the appointment as filling a vacancy, so it did not need to schedule an election for 2022.
Looking at the timing of when the court was created, the next election would be in 2022, Goldberg had said, but second department Judge Sean Hoeffgen’s term of six years is also up in 2022.
“If we appointed the judge for the CARE Court and then set the election for the next election, we’d have both judges up for election right now,” Goldberg said. “And then theoretically they could both lose and not get elected, and then we have nobody who knows anything about the court really there.”
“We’re delighted the court restored the voices of North Las Vegas voters and recognized that it’s voters, not government officials, who ultimately determine who serves as a judge in our community,” said ACLU of Nevada Senior Staff Attorney Sophia Romero in a statement.
