Mosley exits, leaving messy trial, many questions and no rationale

When Clark County District Judge Donald Mosley ran for re-election in 2008, he told voters it would be his last term. He was 61 at the time.

Doesn't pledging to make this his last term mean he serves that term?

Yet he's retiring Friday, nearly three years before that term ends and three days after his 65th birthday.

He is abandoning one of the biggest criminal cases in Nevada's history, one that has touched the lives of thousands of people, a case he has handled since its inception 18 months ago -- the case against Dr. Dipak Desai and two nurse anesthetists facing charges from the hepatitis C outbreak in Las Vegas in 2007.

More than 50,000 people who received colonoscopies at Desai's clinics between 2005 and 2007 were advised to be tested for hepatitis C. Desai and the two anesthetists were charged with racketeering, insurance fraud and neglect of patients involving seven infected patients.

Does Mosley have a health problem? Or a family issue? Sometimes that's a legitimate excuse for quitting before someone's term ends.

Is he just tired of the job or bored?

Mosley isn't saying, refusing to return phone calls.

Because his retirement with the Public Employees Retirement System could pay him up to 90 percent of his salary, maybe it's all about the moolah.

He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would be afraid of handling the Desai case. I haven't heard talk of scandal of any kind.

There's a real lousy consequence to his timing.

Some judge is going to have to take over the Desai case. So far, Chief Judge Jennifer Togliatti hasn't decided who will draw the short straw and land a complex case with more than
1 million pages of documents.

"Justice delayed is justice denied" may be a cliché, but it's true. The trial, set for March 12, probably wasn't going to start then anyway, but now it will definitely take longer for a judge to get up to speed.

Thousands of people who had to get tested for hepatitis C want justice. The seven infected people certainly want to know who is legally to blame for their potentially deadly infection. They're being cheated and so are the taxpayers who have paid Mosley's salary since 1977.

If he wasn't going to finish his term, Mosley shouldn't have run. (Judge Kathy Hardcastle is telling people she's retiring in April before her term is finished.)

The Tulsa, Okla., native moved to Las Vegas after graduating law school. Tall and handsome, then and now, he started as a deputy city attorney in 1977, then ran in 1979 for a Las Vegas Municipal Court judgeship. In 1982, he ran for District Court, the job he has held since.

Prosecutors loved him because he handed out tough sentences and moved criminal cases along briskly.

Yes, he did it his way, but not always the right way.

In 1985, he was condemned by the Nevada Supreme Court, which found it "unbelievable" that he allowed a prosecutor to mention a polygraph test during a murder trial.

In 2002, Mosley was fined $5,000 and censured for ethics violations that occurred over two years, including ex parte meetings, failing to recuse himself in a timely manner in a case in which one of the parties testified on Mosley's behalf in his child custody case, and writing a personal letter to a school principal on court stationery. In other words, he helped his friends and used his power to gain advantages.

The lifelong bachelor's personal life has been tumultuous, marred by ugly custody battles over his son, Michael, who has had his own legal troubles.

Spokeswoman Mary Ann Price says Mosley is not going to work as a senior judge after retiring, so at least he's not retiring early to double dip.

However, Judge Mosley is cheating the public by not explaining why he's a quitter.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Email her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call her at (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/Morrison