JUDICIAL HISTORY IN NEVADA

Reader Dennis responded to this post and my uncertainty about judicial history in Nevada with a detailed discussion of recall and impeachment provisions in that state. Here's the relevant section of the e-mail, which I reproduce with gratitude!

There are four ways to remove judges in Nevada, which is more than most if not all states. One of these is of recent vintage-- removal by a discipline proceeding was added in 1976. A second, recall, was added in 1912 during the Progressive Era when direct citizen action measures like initiative and recall were all the rage. The other two were placed in the original Nevada Constitution in 1864. They are a product of substantial suspicion of the judiciary at the time, which arose from two factors.

One of these factors was dislike of a judge, Orson Hyde, who had administered the western Nevada area in the 1850s when it was a part of the Territory of Utah. Hyde was appointed by Governor Brigham Young and established a government in western Utah that has been described as theocratic. This resulted in not just the ways of removing judges but also a rather ambivalent guarantee of the freedom to worship in the Nevada Constitution's declaration of rights: "The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination of preference, shall forever be allowed in this state...but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of this state."

The second factor was unhappiness by mining interests with the justices on the Supreme Court of the Territory of Nevada, who were portrayed as corrupt (though no evidence of such was ever offered). One delegate to the Nevada constitutional convention generated "merriment" when he said, "Well, there is some resemblance between the state prison and the supreme court." The delegates wrote a constitution that included removal of judges by the impeachment process but also included removal by the legislature for reasons that "may or may not be grounds for impeachment."

To my knowledge, no judge has ever been removed from office by impeachment, recall, or legislative removal. I know of at least one case of a judge being removed in discipline proceedings since the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission was created in 1976. In 1995, North Las Vegas Municipal Judge Gary Davis was removed from office by the commission. The commission also, for some reason, voted to remove District Judge Paul Goldman from office in 1987, even though the judge had resigned on his own.

Thanks! And keep those e-mails coming.

MORE: I mistakenly omitted Dennis's last name above: it's Dennis Myers, and he's a journalist who has been covering the Nevada legislative session. Thanks, Dennis!