SEPTEMBER 2006
FAMILY LAW UNDER FIRE: NEVADA PRACTITIONERS REACT TO THE JUDGE WELLER SHOOTING
By Melinda Catren, State Bar of Nevada
Violence Against the Legal Community – A Growing Trend
Family law is often a volatile and emotional area of practice. This fact was brought home to Nevadans on June 12, 2006 when 2nd Judicial District Family Court Judge Chuck Weller, 53, was shot in the chest by a sniper while in chambers at the Washoe County Courthouse. Police believe the sniper fired his shots from the roof of a parking garage across from the courthouse.
Reno businessman Darren Mack has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting, and also faces charges of murder for allegedly stabbing and killing his wife, Charla Mack, on the same day. Weller, who was handling the couple’s divorce case, pulled through without permanent injury. But for many legal practitioners in our state, the violence was a frightening reminder of their vulnerability. The incident even made its mark on this year’s State Bar Annual Meeting in Hawaii. At the time of the meeting, suspect Mack was still at large and court personnel requested, and received, additional security from local law enforcement on the island.
This trend is not unique to Nevada. USA Today recently reported that threats against both federal judges and other court employees are at a record high. According to the same report, U.S. Marshals have investigated more than 800 such threats since October of 2005. Unfortunately, state court judges are even more vulnerable since they are not under the protection of the U.S. Marshals’ service.
In spite of the rise in threats against members of the legal community nationwide, many of our own practitioners were shaken by the shooting. In a recent interview Weller told the Nevada Lawyer that he had never considered his occupation a life-threatening one and says that until the attack he’d always felt safe at the courthouse. Unsurprisingly, this incident has changed his feelings in this regard and has also made him more aware of his surroundings.
8th Judicial District Court Judge Arthur T. Ritchie says the shooting came as a shock to him. “It was just a sobering reality that this is a potential danger in your profession, basically. But it was more of a worry for my family, my wife and kids, and wondering whether or not we’re in any more danger. I think what people don’t realize is that judges and lawyers probably get threatened all the time. It’s kind of part of the job.”
Washoe County family law attorney Ron Logar has been practicing law in Northern Nevada since the 1960s. While he says courthouse security has always been a concern of his, he was alarmed by the shooting. “I never considered being a judge a hazardous position. Not like being a jet pilot for the Air Force or in jump school at Fort Bragg. It shouldn’t be a dangerous job, because judges are just trying to do the best job they can under the circumstances.”
Family Law – An Emotional Arena
Logar does recognize that there is always the potential for danger in an area of law where emotions run high. “It’s difficult because you can’t take each case and split the baby. You have to make the appropriate decision at the time and oftentimes one person feels that they’ve lost, that the judge made a wrong decision and are unhappy with it. But that’s part of the job. As a judge you have to make those tough decisions.”
That’s something Weller has experienced firsthand. He cites NRS 3.225 (1), which says, “The family court shall whenever practical and appropriate encourage the resolution of disputes before the court through non-adversarial methods or other alternatives to traditional methods of resolution of disputes.” He says this is something the 2nd Judicial District Family Court takes seriously, but litigation is often unavoidable and frequently contentious. Weller noted that by the time a case gets to litigation mode, there have already been failures on the part of both parties to reach an agreement. At that point a stranger – the judge - must step in to resolve the issues. “And the issues we’re talking about are the most intimate: their wealth, their children, their responsibilities for their personal behavior. They’re very emotional issues,” says Weller.
Ritchie agrees. “We deal with a lot of emotional conflicts and we have a lot of people who are stressed, very stressed, about these type of conflicts, whether it’s custody or financial.”
Clark County family law attorney Marshal Willick, of Willick Law Group, was less surprised by the recent violence. “The fact that somebody snapped and went after a judge, I find that un-shocking given my personal history with some of the nut-jobs involved.” That personal history has also made Willick less sanguine about his own safety and the safety of his staff. “If you’re going to be a divorce lawyer, you get threatened a lot. You just do. It’s part of the drama and trauma of the job. Some threats are more credible than others.”
Willick recalls one particular divorce case where the adverse party informed a relative that he had found someone to get rid of his wife’s attorney. That same relative finally made a late-night call to Willick and revealed the content of those conversations. “That one, since I had a good feel for this guy at this point, was adequately convincing. I went down, for the first time in my career, and talked to Metro. They called [him] in for an interview and suggested that it would be really bad for his career if I had a severe illness of any sort or anything untoward might happen to me and ultimately nothing did.” However, the experience did change Willick’s perspective on safety issues. “It was because of [this] that I pretty much decided to stay armed from that point forward.”
Logar says he feels safe both in court and in his offices. “There’s only been one time, and this was maybe 25 years ago, where I received a call from the other lawyer saying ‘Ron, my client just left the office and he is blaming you… …and he’s mad and I want you to know that.’ And I immediately told my personnel that there might be a threat, described him so that everybody knew what he looked like. But nothing ever happened.”
Defusing Potential Violence – An Attorney’s Obligation?
Logar believes that defusing potential violence is part of an attorney’s responsibility.
He says in the event of an adverse decision, it is up to the lawyer to make sure his client understands that this is simply how the legal system works and that the judge makes a decision based upon the law. “We specifically don’t, and I was taught this in law school many years ago, place blame to the client on anybody, either the judge or the adverse party or the adverse party’s lawyer. You just can make a bad situation worse by doing that.”
Willick, on the other hand, says he would have no qualms about letting his client know if he thought the opposing attorney had done something wrong in order to affect the outcome of a case. “I don’t know that it’s an obligation of the attorney to tell people it’s some nameless, faceless process because quite often it isn’t. It’s easy to have cases where it’s somebody’s fault, somebody screwed up, error of law, error of fact, somebody lied. Sometimes you do know what caused a problem, but I don’t think you should whitewash or varnish or paint it over in any other way. I think you have a duty of candor to your client to tell them what you believe to be true.”
Willick was in court just prior to speaking with the Nevada Lawyer, where he says the opposing counsel came forward with a string of lies. He says it didn’t help her case or her client, but it did frustrate and anger Willick’s client. “It doesn’t mean he’s going to do anything about it. He’s not the sort, but if he was then that could be set off by something like that.”
“Lawyers have a tendency to gratuitously put in things about the other client or other people that really don’t have to be there,” says Logar. “They’re in there for shock value. They’re in there to make the other party mad. They’re in there to satisfy their client, but they don’t have to be there. And the final arbiter, the decision maker on what goes in a plea and what doesn’t, is the lawyer. And even our ethical requirements, our ethical rules at the State Bar, tell us that we make that decision, not the client. And a lawyer that practices family law, especially, has to be careful about what he puts in a pleading to look at how inflammatory it might be and whether it is absolutely necessary.”
Weller, who worked as an attorney for many years before taking the bench a year and a half ago, also feels that legal practitioners have a responsibility both to educate and aid their clients. “I’ve always believed that as lawyers we have an obligation to explain the law simply to people, to help them get through difficult parts of their lives as easily as possible. I try to do that in the courtroom. It’s terribly upsetting to me when somebody resorts to violence. That’s what I think that our obligation is in the law and it’s something that I’ve pursued all my life and it’s something that I intend to continue to pursue.”
Security Concerns and Changes, Past and Present
It is Weller’s wish that something good might come out of this tragedy, and that wish may well be granted. The shooting led to a Senate decision, backed by U.S. Senator Harry Reid, to increase federal funding for state courthouses by $250 million.
Ritchie thinks the extra money is needed. “They do training on a regular basis. The bailiffs are very dedicated. We have scanning machines at our courthouses. But we lose a lot of administrative staff. And one of the reasons we lose a lot of administrative staff is that their salaries are not competitive with marshal services, city courts and other courts in the area. “The administrative bailiffs we have are tremendous but if you looked at the longevity of the people, are we losing people because of salary? Do we have enough people to do the job?” Ritchie hopes this is a concern that will be addressed before Clark County sees violence in its own courts. “What we have to do is evaluate our security before something bad happens here. And I think we’re pretty good. We measure up pretty well. But I do think it is a concern, that we do have an issue with how we can keep our administrative bailiffs and make sure that we do have a good staff and a full staff.”
Weller says he would like to see some changes, (“Bullet-proof glass would be a good idea,” he says), but he has only positive things to say about the bailiffs and their actions during the shooting. “They are brave and well trained people. They thought there was a shooter in the building and they ran around corners looking for the shooter and getting everybody else out. They did a remarkable job. The whole staff here did a great job, but the bailiffs especially. You know, most people run from gunfire. They ran towards gunfire.”
While the consensus is that there is room for improvement, security in Nevada courthouses has come a long way. Looking back, Logar remembers a time when Washoe County courts had no security at all. “It took years before Washoe County decided to spend any money for security, years. There were years when there wasn’t an armed deputy in a court room. And then there was a short time where the law clerk would have some kind of special training, get a permit to carry a gun, and the law clerk would be sitting in the courtroom with a gun. But I go back a few years. We didn’t have anything.”
Similarly, Willick has seen improvement in security in Clark County in just the past 20 years. “The fact that they’re screening people, each and every person trying to go in, gives me some reassurance. I haven’t seen any security lapses at the family courthouse down here. When it was under the design phase there were several public meetings and a bunch of us were able to contribute to certain of the design elements of the structure of that place. Security was expressly thought about and that’s why there’s key-card access to the back stairwells.” He says this is a great improvement upon the old building, where for many years there was open access to almost every part of the building. Retrofits for the old building did not get underway until the mid-80s. “It’s been a progressive thing since then,” he explains. If you’re ever up to the Supreme Court building, they were obviously thinking highly about security from the design phase up. There is no admission to the third floor of that building. There’s no way to get there unless you have the proper key card access to get the elevator to even move to the other floors. So, it’s a very secure facility.”
Willick has taken steps to provide security measures in his own offices and has more planned for his new office building, now under construction. “To some degree, security measures are a matter of personal responsibility. The system can’t protect you. Bailiffs can’t protect you. Ultimately every individual is going to have to take some responsibility for his or her own personal safety.”
Weller himself now has ample impetus to look to his personal safety. He says he has made some changes in order to protect himself and his family.
Media Attention
The Weller shooting garnered media attention on both the local and national level. Some in Nevada’s legal community have concerns over the way the story was handled by the local press. Several papers printed letters published online, harshly criticizing Weller and his handling of the cases over which he presided.
Logar is among those unhappy with some of the coverage. “I was very disappointed by some of the comments made in some of the articles. And I haven’t checked the web but I understand there’s one or more websites on Judge Weller. You have to understand that whether or not a person believes that they won or lost, whether they’re happy or mad or neutral, it is a matter of their perception - of what happened, that’s all. It’s just their perception and often times their perception is skewed because of their personal investment in it.”
While Willick agrees that there will always be people who blame the system and the representatives of that system, he doesn’t believe that preventing those individuals from being heard serves any great purpose. “People that don’t want to take personal responsibility for their lives will always look for some external object of concentration to fixate upon. Sometimes it’s lawyers, sometimes it’s the judge, sometimes it’s the other party.” He therefore has no problem with the media allowing these individuals to air their grievances – real or imagined. “I’m a great believer in First Amendment freedoms. So, an opinion, even a loathsome opinion, to me is deserving of protection of expression.”
Staying the Course
The shooting is still very fresh in Weller’s mind. When speaking to the Nevada Lawyer, he had only recently returned to work and to the very chambers where the violence occurred. While he admits that if he had known when starting out that his chosen career might put him in the line of fire he probably would have rethought that choice, he has no plans to quit now. There is a reason he chose to practice family law in the first place and that reason has not changed, nor has his dedication to the law and his faith that the system can be used to truly help people in need of assistance. “Some people take the hard road,” he explains. “Family Court is the hard road in the Judiciary. I came here because it’s where the biggest problems are.”