In Las Vegas, They're Playing With a Stacked Judicial Deck

Las Vegas is a town where District Judge Donald M. Mosley, 59, gave unspent campaign funds to a girlfriend. He called it a loan. She said it was a gift. Canon 7 of the state Code of Judicial Conduct said a judge or a candidate for judicial office "should not use ... campaign contributions for purposes unrelated to the campaign." Mosley acknowledged six years ago in a deposition that he provided her with $10,000 of his political money. Mosley said it was restored to his campaign fund, but his girlfriend said she did not repay it.

Mosley's campaign fundraising reports leave the matter unresolved. They show that the money was neither withdrawn nor paid back.

In a written statement, Mosley said he had been subjected to absurd and unsupported allegations by political opponents and by the girlfriend, with whom he eventually fought for custody of their child. "Neither these individuals nor their attacks," he said, "deserve the dignity of a response."

Judicial campaign rules vary from state to state. The Nevada Supreme Court, the top court in the state, whose justices collect money from lawyers and casinos for their own campaigns, allows district judges to accept campaign donations from people who might appear before them. State judicial canons encourage the judges to solicit and accept the donations through campaign committees, but the canons also allow the judges to do it personally.

U.S. and Nevada judicial canons say judges should withdraw from cases where their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Nevada canons also say judges must avoid even the appearance of impropriety and should reveal on the record anything that they think anyone in court could reasonably consider relevant to disqualification -- even if the judges do not think they should withdraw.

Nevada, however, does not require judges to reveal when their donors appear before them.

When lawyers in California and Nevada, along with a number of Nevada district judges, both sitting and retired, were asked about how this affected justice in Las Vegas, many spoke openly about its pernicious effects -- particularly about how lawyers and their clients sometimes must pay to play on a level field.

They also told how the effects of judicial corruption seep from Nevada across the state line into California.