Las Vegas judge testifies, defends herself at judicial discipline hearing

A Las Vegas judge testified at a Thursday hearing and defended her actions in a case that has put her under the scrutiny of the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline.

An April filing from an attorney for the commission accused District Judge Erika Ballou of defying the Nevada Supreme Court and violating the Nevada Code of Judicial Conduct.

Commission Special Counsel Thomas Bradley wrote that the judge ordered the release of a prisoner named Mia Christman and when the Nevada Supreme Court reversed Ballou on appeal, failed to order that Christman be taken into custody.

Ballou also issued orders while a motion to recuse her was pending, which another judge found to be a violation of the law, the filing said.

Now, Ballou and Tom Pitaro, her attorney, have laid out a counter-narrative.

“This hearing is actually going to show the opposite of what the commission has said,” Pitaro told the panel. “What Judge Ballou did is what a judge is supposed to do. You are supposed to consider what is before you and you are supposed to rule on it.”

The commission did not issue a decision at the hearing as to how or if Ballou would be disciplined, but Bradley asked commission members to give Ballou a punishment harsher than censure, which she has previously been subject to.

“This is a case about honor, or more specifically, failure of honor,” Bradley said in his opening statement at the disciplinary hearing.

“Judge Ballou failed repeatedly and deliberately to comply with the mandates from the Supreme Court,” he added. “It was not the result of oversight or negligence.”

2022 Nevada Supreme Court order

Bradley asked Ballou about a 2022 Nevada Supreme Court order reversing her decision granting Christman’s petition and ordering “proceedings consistent with this order.”

The judge would not agree with him the higher court order was unambiguous. “Proceedings consistent with this order could mean a lot of things,” she said.

During a January 2023 hearing in Christman’s case, a transcript shows Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hamner asked, “You made a determination, they believe you were incorrect and so now you want to try to get more evidence to reconvince the Supreme Court that you were right the first time around?”

“Sure,” replied Ballou at the time. She confirmed the exchange in her testimony.

Ballou set a new evidentiary hearing and prosecutors appealed her again. The Supreme Court ruled in October 2023 that Ballou must vacate the hearing and enter judgment in favor of prosecutors.

But the judge testified she did not immediately rule in prosecutors’ favor because Christman’s lawyer filed more motions.

“I guess I’m incorrect,” she said, adding that she thought she had to rule on the motions before making an order.

Ballou indicated that in the wake of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, she also provided Christman with additional time to find a place for her six-month-old child before she’d be taken back into custody.

“There was a baby who potentially would have gone into Child Haven or something,” she said.

‘I don’t believe anyone thinks that brings dishonor on the court’

The judge’s attorney said she did the right thing.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” said Pitaro. “Maybe the world has gone crazy. But it doesn’t bring disrespect upon the court if a judge looks at a terrible situation facing a six-month-old child and says, ‘I want to give you time to straighten it out.’ I don’t believe anyone thinks that brings dishonor on the court. Arguing it does, it blows my mind.”

Prosecutors asked for Ballou t0 be recused from the case in April 2024, but the judge said she was not served with the motion to recuse as the law required.

Hamner said after the hearing that his understanding is Ballou was served.

The Supreme Court in May 2024 ordered Christman’s case assigned to a different judge. “We are not convinced that the respondent district court judge will comply,” a three-judge panel wrote.

Chief District Judge Jerry Wiese removed Ballou from all criminal cases this May, days after a public defender said the judge should be disqualified, in part for baselessly claiming the attorney was “‘f—-ing’ her client.”

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

The judge was also censured by the commission 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.”

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