‘Black Lives Matter’ support swells among Las Vegas defense attorneys

A pair of Las Vegas defense attorneys started distributing “Black Lives Matter” buttons among their colleagues nearly two months before the issue sparked controversy at the Regional Justice Center.

Monique McNeill and Jonathan MacArthur first ordered a dozen buttons, about the size of a silver dollar, after learning of an Ohio attorney who was jailed for wearing a similar pin to court.

“One of the problems that surrounds the Black Lives Matter movement is people haven’t decided whether it’s political or whether it’s a solidarity issue,” MacArthur said. “When I wear the pin, it’s a solidarity statement.”

The pair’s effort to show their support led to a groundswell throughout the Regional Justice Center, and they ordered another dozen buttons.

“As criminal defense attorneys, the majority of our clients are black,” McNeill said. “And if not us being their champions, then who is going to be their champions? We have to be the ones who stand up here and talk about how the system mistreats them.”

McNeill gave one of the buttons to Deputy Public Defender Erika Ballou, who wore it to various courtrooms in August without a complaint from judges or court staff.

On Tuesday, after Ballou returned to work from vacation, District Judge Douglas Herndon told her she could not wear the button while representing defendants in his courtroom.

Ballou is expected to appear before Herndon again Thursday for the sentencing hearing of a man convicted of battery. She would not say how she plans to address the judge’s concern.

Herndon’s decision came less than a week after the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, the union for rank-and-file members of the Metropolitan Police Department, sent a letter to Chief District Judge David Barker expressing concern about several public defenders who have been wearing Black Lives Matter lapel pins in court.

The police union’s new executive director, Steve Grammas, authored the letter, referring to the pins as “propaganda.”

“We have received complaints from our member officers who believe that such displays have no place in courtrooms in which justice is to be dispensed,” the letter read.

Herndon said wearing the pin in court was “inappropriate” and referenced U.S. Supreme Court decisions that allow judges to prohibit political symbols in the courtroom.

Several defense lawyers, including Deputy Public Defender Kelley Jones, are expected at Herndon’s courtroom on the 16th floor of the Regional Justice Center for Thursday’s hearing.

“I believe in the Black Lives Matter movement and what it stands for,” Jones said Wednesday. “I am also supporting my colleague and my friend in what happened yesterday. I will be wearing it continuously until we stop seeing senseless killings of African-Americans or black people in the streets.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada also has taken interest in the developing movement at the courthouse.

Tod Story, the group’s executive director, said Black Lives Matter activists have a legitimate gripe that is “borne out by the numbers throughout the country.” And a public defender would be acutely aware of such institutional problems and in a unique position to draw attention to it.

“Accusing that activity as being propaganda, to me, that’s pretty offensive,” he said.

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter. Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0391. Follow @WesJuhl on Twitter.