Lawyer asks court to overturn district judge’s contempt order

In court papers, his lawyers argued that the contempt order violated his due process rights and was “unduly burdensome,” costing MacArthur more than $43,000 over the next year.

Last month, District Judge Susan Johnson fined the outspoken MacArthur $500 and ordered him to pay the Clark County district attorney’s office $7,060 for the time its prosecutors spent preparing for the trial.

Johnson also indicated she would report MacArthur’s conduct to the State Bar of Nevada and recommend his removal from the panel of attorneys paid by the county to represent indigent defendants. The defendant in this case, Melody Lynn Benham, qualified for a county-paid attorney.

Since the contempt order, MacArthur has been told that the county is reducing his pay under his appointed counsel contract from $4,500 a month to $1,500 a month, meaning he stands to lose another $36,000 in income over the next year, his lawyers wrote.

On Wednesday, after being notified that MacArthur’s petition would be filed, the Supreme Court blocked a status hearing Johnson had set that day to see whether MacArthur complied with her contempt order. A response to the petition is due in 45 days.

In the petition, MacArthur’s lawyers also asked the Supreme Court to order Johnson to hold an evidentiary hearing into the facts that led the judge to issue the contempt order.

And they want the court to order Johnson to withdraw her state bar complaint against MacArthur and her recommendation that MacArthur be removed from the appointed counsel panel.

MacArthur, who has a history of speaking out, once wrote on his MySpace page that he had a hobby of “breaking my foot off in a prosecutor’s ass.”

Those comments cost him his job as a substitute judge in North Las Vegas Justice Court in 2007 after District Attorney David Roger lodged a complaint.

The state bar is now considering disciplinary action against MacArthur over his conduct in another criminal case. The district attorney’s office asked the bar in December to investigate whether MacArthur tried to bribe a witness in the criminal case to change testimony.

Prosecutors considered taking the allegations to a grand jury but chose instead to let the bar sort things out first.

MacArthur was supposed to defend Benham at a Sept. 19 trial on child abuse charges over allegations of mistreatment of her 9-month-old daughter. But he told Johnson that he was unprepared and sought to continue the trial, court documents show.

The defense lawyer argued that there were unresolved plea negotiations in the case and, as a result, he did not subpoena key medical witnesses.

Johnson didn’t buy his arguments, however, and ordered the trial to proceed the next day.

But when MacArthur showed up the next day, he again told the judge he would not participate in the trial and he understood action would be taken against him.

Johnson then held him in contempt from the bench and later formalized the sanction in an 11-page written order.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.