Replacement assigned for Halverson

The state Supreme Court on Friday assigned a senior judge to indefinitely replace District Judge Elizabeth Halverson, who court officials say breached courthouse security.

Officials changed the locks and deactivated the rookie judge's key card to enter secured areas on Thursday night after Chief Judge Kathy Hardcastle barred her from entering the Regional Justice Center. The lockout is in place until Halverson agrees to meet with court officials, who have said the judge has grown increasingly paranoid that everyone is against her.

"She's created something in her mind that just doesn't exist," Hardcastle said Friday.

Halverson did not come to work Friday. Attorneys for the one case she was set to hear had asked for a delay earlier in the week.

Hardcastle issued an administrative order barring Halverson after she refused to discuss with judges why on Wednesday she circumnavigated security procedures and brought two private bodyguards into secured areas of the courthouse. It was unclear if the bodyguards carried firearms, though one had an extendable metal rod.

"She refused to meet with us yesterday, with the presiding judges, to discuss the various issues and concerns about security," Hardcastle said. "Instead, she locked herself in the office when people tried to talk to her."

Senior Judge Stephen Huffaker will preside over her department starting Monday.

Halverson did not return phone calls from the Review-Journal. She previously has said that court officials have a vendetta against her. Her friends and family have said the judge believes Hardcastle is targeting her because of past feuds.

Since she was elected to Nevada's busiest state court in November, Halverson has been under scrutiny because of her lack of trial experience.

She served as a law clerk for nine years in District Court, a job that involves researching decisions for judges. Most attorneys clerk for a year or two before practicing law. Citing the temporary nature of the position, Hardcastle fired Halverson in 2004. Halverson then ran unsuccessfully for a Family Court judgeship against Hardcastle's then-husband. She started her own firm before running for the seat she won in November.

"Judge Hardcastle cannot seem to sit with the fact that Las Vegas voters believed in Elizabeth Halverson and wanted to give her a chance to be the brilliant judge that I know and they know she is capable of being," said Halverson's sister, Angela La Macchia, of California. "I personally think the voters in Las Vegas will see through Judge Hardcastle's agenda and games."

Hardcastle called such allegations "ludicrous."

Halverson "doesn't recognize that her behavior is causing problems for the court's litigants and the other judges," Hardcastle said.

She said Halverson has not contacted judges since the lockout.

Attorney Bob Spretnak, who is representing Halverson on another matter involving a former bailiff, said Friday he had not had any contact with his client about the courthouse lockout.

"I'm very optimistic this can be resolved before things get too heated," Spretnak said.

He said he believes Halverson could make an argument in federal court that her constitutional right to due process was violated because "the lockout occurred prior to any sort of hearing being given."

On Thursday, Hardcastle sent Halverson a memo asking her to remove her private bodyguards from the courthouse and notified her that the judges were having a noon meeting at which they could discuss Halverson's concerns. When Hardcastle received no answer, the judges asked Las Vegas police to act as mediators.

"They got nowhere with her," Hardcastle said.

Hardcastle's fellow judges then agreed with her proposal to bar Halverson from the courthouse until she agreed to meet with them.

"We supported it because it was the right thing to do," said District Judge Stewart Bell.

"They (her bodyguards) came through private, unsecured entrances, so, hell, they could have had a machine gun for all I knew," Bell said. "My hope is today, tomorrow, or the next day some sort of accord on this can be reached, and Judge Halverson can go back to work."

Jeff Stempel, a professor with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Boyd School of Law, said this highly unusual situation highlights the need for appointed instead of elected judges.

He also questioned where the power of a strong chief judge ends.

"It troubles me a little that if you are going to elect a judge, that someone else can keep them from judging," he said.

He said both sides might be overreacting.

"It seems like trying to swat a fly with a bazooka on both sides, to be honest, both Judge Halverson bringing in the security guards and Judge Hardcastle barring her from the premises," Stempel said.

Court spokesman Michael Sommermeyer said court officials learned through police that Halverson was upset court officials in April reassigned the bailiff she hired in January, Johnny Jordan. She thought she wasn't adequately protected by the other bailiffs who had been pulling temporary duty in her courtroom.

"She increasingly became suspicious of them and accused them of being spies and was rude and condescending to them to the point that some of them were indicating to us that they would refuse to go to her courtroom," Hardcastle said.

The bailiff was reassigned because he filed a complaint with the Clark County Office of Diversity, said court officials, who cannot rehire a permanent bailiff for her until that complaint is resolved.

Halverson will continue collecting her $130,000 a year salary and can work on cases at home through an electronic case management system, said Chuck Short, court administrator.

Her court recorder and law clerk tried to go to work Friday morning but could not enter the court chamber. Short said court administration escorted them to Halverson's chamber to collect personal and professional items so they could continue to work elsewhere.

Court officials also videotaped Halverson's chambers to stymie any suggestion that court administrators stole items from her, Short said.

Because of their past disputes, Hardcastle said she appointed three veteran judges in April to give Halverson counsel after the new judge unknowingly broke the law and spoke to two deliberating juries without attorneys present.

"I've been very careful to make sure the matters are considered by a committee of judges," Hardcastle said. "They've tried working with her, but she refused after the first meeting to work with them."

As chief judge, she cannot remove a judge from office during a judge's term.

Voters can recall serving judges, the Legislature can impeach them, which has never happened, and the Commission on Judicial Discipline can remove them after an ethics complaint and a public hearing, said David Sarnowski, executive director of the commission.