Judicial censure

A judicial ethics panel censured Clark County District Court candidate Joanna S. Kishner on Monday for making “reckless” statements about her opponent, Philip J. Dabney.

A censure is a public reprimand.

The Standing Committee on Judicial Ethics and Election Practices — a handful of judges and attorneys — found Ms. Kishner knowingly made reckless statements that omitted facts about Mr. Dabney during their joint appearance on a Sept. 13 televised debate. The two are candidates for the new Department 31 seat in Clark County.

But — does this start to sound familiar? –the censors then admitted nothing Ms. Kishner said was false.

During the debate, Ms. Kishner said Mr. Dabney “personally benefited” by about $250,000 by having an elderly client put his law firm in charge of her estate.

While the ethics panel found the information she gave was not false, members said Ms. Kishner should also have told the public that Mr. “Dabney had not improperly or unlawfully influenced the client” to give him money.

In addition, the panel found the violation of rules of professional conduct was actually committed by Mr. Dabney’s law partner.

Ms. Kishner’s campaign manager contends her boss wanted to say more, but was “cut off” by the TV show’s host.

Who cares?

The point here is that the courts exist to protect our rights. Our most sacred and elevated rights are those specifically protected by the Constitution. One of those is the freedom of speech, and it’s hard to imagine a place where the freedom of speech should be more jealously protected than in campaigns for public office.

Writing for the majority in the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision Minnesota Republican Party v. Suzanne White, which threw out state “judicial standards” barring candidates for judicial election from announcing their views on disputed legal and political issues, Justice Antonin Scalia acknowledged the American Bar Association is opposed to judges being elected, but said, “The First Amendment does not permit it to achieve its goal by leaving the principle of elections in place while preventing candidates from discussing what the elections are about.”

The censure in question is a blatant attempt to chill Ms. Kishner’s exercise of her First Amendment rights. If anything, the public needs judicial candidates to be more forthcoming about the differences between them and how they view and would apply the law, not less so.

If her opponent felt he had been slandered, the proper remedy is first to demand the host give him time to defend himself, and — all else failing — to file suit in District Court.

Not only does this action of the Standing Committee on Judicial Ethics and Election Practices appear to violate the law of the land, the very existence of Nevada’s Standing Committee on Judicial Ethics and Election Practices violates the spirit of the aforementioned U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

As it happens, we have endorsed Mr. Dabney. But in making their decision in this race, voters should ignore both this committee and its pointless “censure” of Ms. Kishner.