All these courthouse favors must stop … at least until I get mine

We must not let this injustice stand. Won’t you join me in this fight for equal treatment?

I speak, of course, of the astounding story that speeding tickets were being “fixed” and calls to jury duty were being made to disappear at the local courthouse.

Imagine such backroom shenanigans occurring in our Mayberry on the Mojave. Why, it boggles the brain.

One of the more intriguing developments in District Judge Elizabeth Halverson’s ongoing battle to keep her job against critics down at the Regional Justice Center is the discovery of a folder on former judicial executive assistant Ileen Spoor’s desk labeled “Quick Fix Reports.” Spoor was JEA for District Judge Michael Cherry before he ascended unopposed to the Nevada Supreme Court.

The folder is jammed with citations from friends of the court and Spoor, including one of her relatives. Most of the tickets were issued for speeding. I saw none for violations involving accidents or driving under the influence. All the tickets appeared to have been paid, most with fines in the hundreds of dollars.

Don’t you hate it when a big-time courthouse scandal doesn’t quite pan out? Me, too. But humor me for a while longer.

It turns out the great citation-payment shortcut is a common practice for those in the know. Spoor is one of many practitioners.

At best, the “Quick Fix Reports” folder appears to illustrate that Cherry’s secretary was able to play traffic court judge with her old boss’s tacit permission. (Spoor didn’t have Halverson’s permission.)

Those with access paid their citations and had their offenses reduced to parking infractions, thus avoiding points against their driving record and perhaps also avoiding increases in their insurance rates. (This could provide grist for investigation and might be of interest to insurance companies.)

If you call the number on one of those “Caught Speeding?” billboards, you’ll meet an attorney who, for a fee, will take your ticket and make sure it’s given the same treatment Spoor gave the friends of the court.

Traffic court Johnnie Cochrans set appointments with pro-tem judges and regularly process hundreds of speeding citations in the local system.

Can we presume Spoor charged no fee and never suggested a donation to her boss’s election campaign?

That’s the problem with doing ethically shaky favors no matter how common. Some of Spoor’s e-mail describes conversations with Justice Cherry about the Halverson affair. An e-mail from Cherry is part of the collected correspondence in circulation.

Then the e-mails get even more chummy. Spoor is contacted by Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino Catering Manager Darlene Williams, who is attempting to get a co-worker named Lisa Roth out of jury duty. Williams writes, “This is my friend that handles Super Bowl Party that we always get seats for MC at!”

Spoor writes Williams, “You probably won’t need superbowl tix for Michael this year because he lives in Carson City now.”

MC. Michael. Michael Cherry.

Call me Columbo.

While it’s hardly a surprise that a judge might enjoy freebies in this community, the tenor of the e-mail makes it sound like an example of trading favors. Backs are scratched all the time in the real world, but reducing such sentiments to writing raises the specter of whether Spoor ever performed a bit of creative arm-twisting on behalf of a judge’s election campaign.

Heaven forbid. Surely that would never take place here in Mayberry on the Mojave.

If the “Quick Fix” file sounds worse than it is for Spoor, the e-mail cattiness makes her look petty and embarrassingly disloyal to her new boss.

It also makes it clear Halverson’s suspicions were justified when she believed Spoor was playing games behind her back. It’s another example of how the Halverson mess promises to mortify some folks down at the Regional Justice Center.

I still can’t decide what makes me madder: the lack of a felony-sized scandal, the idea that a judge’s secretary was an efficient traffic judge apparently capable of making calls to jury duty disappear, or the fact others receive courthouse courtesies I don’t get.

I will not rest until this practice of favoritism is discontinued.

Or at least until the rest of us are included.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.