Controversial Las Vegas judge has lowest retention score in RJ survey

A controversial Las Vegas judge received the lowest retention score of 101 judges included in the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s 2025 Judicial Performance Evaluation.

District Judge Erika Ballou, who was suspended from the bench without pay for six months in September, received a 32.8 percent retention score, meaning only about a third of the 244 attorneys who rated her want to keep her on the bench.

The average retention score for all judges in the survey was 75.6 percent.

Ballou also received low scores in the categories of administrative ability, legal ability and integrity: 2.95 for administrative ability, 2.78 for legal ability and 2.91 for integrity.

Those were the lowest results for all district judges in those categories, which were on a five-point scale.

Ballou could not be reached for comment.

Most of the written feedback she received from lawyers was negative.

“She is literally the worst judge on the bench,” one wrote. “She is openly hostile during trial to the point that the jury gains sympathy for the attorneys. She just does not care about this job.”

Another commented, “She is a political activist turned judge. She uses race too much in cases and has no respect from law enforcement and she ignores appellate decisions. She has no business being on the bench and she should never sit again after her suspension is lifted.”

Some attorneys were more positive.

“She is thorough and smart and speaks the truth, even when it’s not a popular thing to say,” one respondent wrote.

Ballou’s suspension stemmed from a case in which she was accused of defying the Nevada Supreme Court by releasing a prisoner and not ordering the prisoner to be taken back into custody when the high court reversed her decision on appeal.

The judge also was censured last year over social media posts and comments she made at a sentencing: “You’re a Black man in America, you know you don’t want to be around where cops are,” and, “I know I don’t, and I’m a middle-aged, middle-class Black woman. I don’t want to be around where cops are, because I don’t know if I’m going to walk away alive or not.”

In May, Chief District Judge Jerry Wiese removed Ballou from all criminal cases, days after a public defender said the judge should be disqualified from the public defender’s cases, in part for baselessly claiming the attorney was having a sexual relationship with a client.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson previously had attempted to have Ballou removed from all of his office’s cases.

Ballou was elected to her seat in 2020. She did not campaign or raise money but received an endorsement from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.