The Fight Against The Grain Of Ethical Compromise

Please read the Opinion of the late Craig Walton, Founder and past President of the Nevada Center for Public Ethics. Since he is not here to weigh in on the recent actions of the Nevada Legislature and the US Supreme Court, so I'm restating his thoughts here.

Craig Walton's letter, to the Las Vegas Business Journal in favor of the new plan for judicial selection (Nevada Center for Public Ethics LINK):

Judges: Standards?

Today in Nevada, judges are selected by a corrupt money-chasing process. Since 1998, we have raised the ante on the cost of one Supreme Court seat 300% - from over $174,000 to over $543,000. Judges and candidates are forced to seek money, and attorneys and litigants are forced to give money to avoid risking a bad day in court.

Many judges and the President of the Nevada State Bar have asked that we change this corrupting practice. In 2007 the Legislature passed SJR2, which if passed again and then ratified by the public, would create two public & professional committees: [1] the first would receive nominations for a judgeship and evaluate them using professional standards, sending the best of those nominees to the Governor for appointment. [2] The second committee of public & professionals would create standards for judicial performance review, the results of which would then be used by the public to vote in a retention election for all judges previously selected.
Some argue that politicians and judges are equally chosen by the same standards. But as the 2007 ABA Model Code for Judicial Conduct explains,

"Governors and legislators are not expected to be independent of the people; to the contrary, these officials are expected to represent their respective constituencies by acting on the policy preferences of those who elected them. Judges, however, are different. Once voters' policy preferences are enacted into rules of law, it is up to judges to ensure that those rules of law are faithfully interpreted and upheld .... the rule of law would be corrupted if interest groups, public officials, powerful private citizens, or fleeting majorities of the public could intimidate a judge into interpreting a law to their liking or reading a law out of existence altogether. Unlike governors and legislators, judges must be, as John Adams urged us, as 'independent as the lot of humanity will admit.'"

Craig Walton
Emeritus Professor of Ethics & Policy Studies, UNLV
President, Nevada Center for Public Ethics

A very big loss for Nevada in 2007, Mr. Walton was a named voice with reason and ethics. Even if something was accepted, he questioned the ethics. Even if the norm, he questioned the ethics. Even if legal, he questioned the ethics. He, and countless unnamed others, have and are pushing against the grain for change in Nevada, and in other legal communities around the country, for ethical reform. One of the biggest obstacles are the followers, the young ones, the old ones, the drones, the clerks, the assistants, the associates, the law students, the aspiring. They follow blindly in an effort for and in hope of achievement. They choose those that have visible acclaim, or those who profess to "know things", as their mentors, without regard for how or what they have really achieved. Many times what has been achieved is merely a personal connection, an eloquent tongue, a talented pen, a spirited personality or a notable education. In the dust, these mentors can leave behind heart, integrity, judgment, mercy, conviction and honesty, all the very basis of ethics.

Should we not venerate our mentors for their ethics, at very least on equal ground with their notable achievements? Unfortunately, too many of our professors, judges, charitable donors, teachers, politicians and community leaders asseverate adherence to "ethical standards", yet advance the deterioration of our overall morality and ethical base by intentional or unintentional ethical compromise themselves. They are cloaked, very cleverly, in the shadows of their admirers, not by ingenious devise, but by default. That is the system they were given, so they take what they can.

I say, refuse to simply go where the path may lead you and instead go where no path has been made for you and blaze a trail for others to follow. You may just find it makes for a better road.