Special Treatment Keeps Them Under the Radar

Yet the Nevada Supreme Court has conferred upon these judges a special distinction that exempts them from some of the common rules of judicial practice and reduces their accountability. They are among 17 state judges whom the high court has commissioned as senior judges.

Unlike regular judges, senior judges are not answerable to the voters, but serve at the pleasure of the high court, and that can mean for life. Unlike regular judges, they can reject assignments until they are given a case they want to try. Unlike regular judges, they cannot be removed from a case by peremptory challenge. And until last year, they did not have to disclose their financial interests.

With this exceptional flexibility, they could try lawsuits in which they had a personal stake without revealing it. And because they cannot be removed by peremptory challenge, which normally permits a one-time replacement of a judge at the beginning of any case simply for the asking, it is possible for litigants to be stuck with senior judges, their conflicts of interest and their decisions.

The judge who was nearly indicted is James A. Brennan. He resigned as a state judge to avoid being charged by a federal grand jury with blackmail. After the state Supreme Court returned Brennan to the bench and then named him a senior judge, he presided over at least 16 cases involving participants in his real estate deals. A recent search found no statement in court records that Brennan publicly disclosed those relationships.

The judge who ruled for a casino corporation in which he held stock is Stephen L. Huffaker. He owned 12,000 shares of the corporation while the case was before him. In addition, he presided over cases involving another casino corporation whose foundation gave his son a partial scholarship to Yale University. A recent search found no statement in court records that Huffaker publicly disclosed the scholarship at the time.