What happened to Justice Court administrator? Court and county aren’t saying

Court officials and the county won’t release records that would shed light on why Las Vegas Justice Court Administrator Jessica Gurley left her job abruptly in October.

Gurley resigned and left the court Oct. 23 with a severance payment of $11,508.80, according to the court. Charles Mapp, who previously was assistant court administrator, is now listed as the court’s interim head and clerk of the court. Gurley started her job at Justice Court in 2021 after working for courts in Washington state, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Gurley would not do an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal. A man who answered the door at an address listed for Gurley told a reporter: “Get away from my (expletive) house,” but accepted a note for her. Gurley responded with an email complaining about that visit and offering to consider answering questions in writing. The Review-Journal’s policy is not to provide questions in advance of an interview.

Seeking information about her departure, the Review-Journal filed public records requests with Clark County, which handles human resources duties for the court, and Justice Court. The requests asked for complaints from court staff to the county about Gurley and records showing whether Gurley resigned or was terminated and any severance paid to her.

The county directed the Review-Journal to file the request with the court and refused to say whether it has any responsive records. Mapp said the court’s own policy — which claims the court is exempt from state public records law — prevents it from releasing personnel information.

Media attorney Matt Topic, a national expert on public records cases, said administrative records for courts should be subject to public records laws.

”These are people who are paid by tax dollars, who have an awful lot of authority to administer the court system,” he said. “And the whole principle of open records laws is that transparency allows us to understand what our government officials are doing and to hold them accountable.”

Request responses

In an email, county spokesperson Stephanie Wheatley denied the request.

“Clark County does not maintain legal custody or control of administrative records of the Las Vegas Justice Court,” she wrote.

Wheatley cited a statute that instructs a government agency to inform a requestor if it doesn’t have legal custody or control of a record and direct the person to the agency that does. In a reply to an interview request for this story, she said she had already provided the county’s response.

She refused to say whether the county had any records about Gurley’s departure, saying only that the county was not the custodian for the records.

But the county may have records that would illuminate the situation. Mapp, the interim administrator, said the court and county have a memorandum of understanding that specifies the county handles tasks like employee compensation and relations as well as personnel records management.

The 2013 agreement, provided by Mapp, says nothing about public records requests.

Mapp initially said he would need 30 days to respond to the Review-Journal’s request, then denied most of the request, saying the court’s records policy prohibited him from releasing “personnel and payroll records and records of employment investigations, background checks, and disciplinary hearings.”

“We therefore cannot provide any record, nor confirm the existence of, any employment investigation or discipline,” he added.

Mapp also indicated that the court believes it is not subject to state records law.

“(T)he release of Las Vegas Justice Court’s administrative records is not governed by the Nevada Public Records Act but by its own records policy,” he said.

He did not respond to interview requests.

Experts weigh in

Government transparency experts were critical of the court’s and county’s reasoning.

Review-Journal Chief Legal Officer Benjamin Lipman said that if the county has copies of the records, the Nevada Public Records Act requires that it release them even if another governmental entity also has them.

The statute the county cited “doesn’t provide a way for governmental entities to avoid producing records that they have possession of,” he said. “It is a requirement that if they don’t have possession, that they let the person requesting the records know what entity does have possession. It’s a way to better ensure transparency, not to give excuses for not producing records.”

He also said courts are subject to the Nevada Public Records Act for administrative records.

“Courts in their administrative capacities are governmental entities just like everyone else,” Lipman said. “They are public servants and publicly funded entities and part of the government and the transparency that we need for all of government applies just as equally to them.”

American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada staff attorney Jacob Smith agreed.

“If it’s just a straight-up rejection because another entity has control of it, that’s not a viable justification for not supplying public records,” he said.

A requirement that all agencies that have a record provide it “keeps agencies from just kicking the can around and not fulfilling anybody’s request,” he said.

In the case of the departure of a high-level court official, he said, the public needs to know whether there was misconduct or whether the person was fired for a non-legitimate reason.

Colorado First Amendment lawyer Steven Zansberg said records should be available whether they relate to people in the judicial branch or other branches of government.

“They’re all equally accountable to we the people,” he said.

“We don’t live in a system like many Eastern European (or) South American countries where they say, ‘Trust us,’” he added.

The “What Are They Hiding?” column was created to educate Nevadans about transparency laws, inform readers about Review-Journal coverage being stymied by bureaucracies and shame public officials into being open with the hardworking people who pay all of government’s bills. Were you wrongly denied access to public records? Share your story with us at whataretheyhiding@reviewjournal.com.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.