THE FAMILY COURT PROJECT HAS COME TO A CLOSE.
Effective 6/1/08, Family Court Chronicles has become inactive (announcement), and
no new information will be added. The page below is retained for
archive purposes, but it could be out of date. Upon request,
the webmaster will
continue to correct significant errors and will consider
removing information that is destructively obsolete.
(Email: FamilyCourtGuy (at) gmail.com) Glenn Campbell's other websites
remain active:
KilroyCafe.com,
RoamingPhotos.com
and
Facebook
For one thing, the current population at Child Haven and in other shelter care is down almost 33 percent from this time last year. In mid-May, the population of children in protective custody was at 224, with 135 juveniles at Child Haven and 89 others in shelter care. At the same time in 2006, Palma said, 333 children were in protective custody, with 164 of them at Child Haven and 169 others in shelter programs.
"We're in a much better spot than we were a year ago," Palma said.
The county's Department of Family Services also reports a modest gain in the number of available foster families. Since November, the number of nonrelative foster homes has increased by 13 percent, to 378 from 335. That expands foster home capacity by an estimated 130 beds.
"It's increased a bit, not as much as we want and not as much as it will be within the next six months and within the next year," said Ron Davidson, assistant director of Clark County Services.
In her filing, Hardcastle told the justices she was forced to take action for numerous reasons, including Halverson's "seemingly volatile, angry, paranoid and bizarre behavior toward staff."
According to documents included in the response, Halverson called her court clerk "evil one" and "Anti-Christ." She called her judicial executive assistant "an idiot," called a lawyer "a liar," referred to bailiffs as "bitches," called her husband derogatory names in front of staff and answered her phone pretending to be her law clerk.
At one point during an April 6 meeting between Halverson and a panel of veteran judges Hardcastle had asked to give Halverson guidance, Judge Sally Loehrer recommended Halverson seek professional help to understand how she treats people. Halverson stated she was considering a business coach to communicate better.
"Judge Halverson is re-directed to consider the help of either a psychiatrist or a psychologist," the human resources report stated.
In District Judge Stewart Bell's affidavit, one of the many attachments submitted by Hardcastle to the state's high court, Bell wrote that courthouse staff had "made allegations which, if sustained, would amount to violations of law, county policy and union contracts. We believed that we had a duty to take immediate action to protect Judge Halverson and bailiff Jordan as well as to protect the county from potential future liability."
Hardcastle told the justices that people who work at the Regional Justice Center in downtown Las Vegas "simply had no idea how far she was willing to carry her conduct. In light of the numerous other complaints regarding her behavior, there were legitimate concerns about the safety of those in the Courthouse."...
Shortly after taking office, Halverson had [court clerk]
Streuber, swear in her judicial executive assistant, Ileen Spoor....
That same day, Halverson had Streuber swear in Halverson's husband so Halverson could ask him, under oath, whether he had adequately cleaned their house for her mother's upcoming visit, Streuber noted to court officials.
Streuber requested and received a transfer and is still employed in the courthouse.
Comments from the Webmaster
And to think: If there were just a few votes cast differently in
an earlier election (against our Judge Hardcastle), all of this
entertainment could have been ours!
The public defender's office requested 46 new positions but received only one for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.
County Manager Virginia Valentine said no department received the number of positions it requested, and many departments received no additional staff whatsoever.
Of 705 new jobs requested by department heads, 50 ultimately made it into the general fund of next year's budget, and all but 13 of them are in the areas of public safety and criminal justice.
Since 2001, more than 1,200 requested positions have gone unfilled....
County Chief Financial Officer George Stevens said this is actually one of the county's largest hiring spurts ever if you include the 119 new child welfare positions that were added to the Department of Family Services after last year's budget was approved.
For the next 90 to 180 days, members of the Nevada Supreme Court's newly formed Commission on the Preservation, Access and Sealing of Court Records will explore such questions as they shape recommendations that will define when it is proper to cut off public access to civil and criminal cases and when it is not.
On Monday, as the group met for the first time, Nevada Supreme Court Justice James Hardesty asked the commission to consider three questions:
• Should super-sealing, which removes all traces of a case from the public record, be off-limits in Nevada?
• Does the burden of proof to seal records rest on the person seeking to seal a case?
• Before a case is sealed, should a hearing be held before a judge to determine whether the state or any other entity has a compelling interest in the matter?
Judge Halverson dropped a bombshell this week when she alleged to the Eyewitness News I-Team that she had evidence of a ticket-fixing operation inside her own office at the courthouse. Halverson says she found a thick file of traffic citations that had been processed by her former clerk.
Comments from the Webmaster
Ticket fixing is certainly a concern, but the alleged perpetrator is
someone who Halverson herself hired and supervised.
Ticket fixing it isn't what made Halverson
wacko and barricade herself in her office, and it isn't what made all of her previous staff quit.
You could call her a sociopath, but that doesn't quite explain things.
Deep inside, she has the core self-esteem of a gnat. She doesn't have the
ability just to sit on the bench, remain awake and make reasoned judgments
based on the law. Deep down, she knows this, so she creates chaos all
around her. In the midst of the chaos, she hopes that no one will
notice her incompetence.
Halverson is the sort of personality who is only going to be
comfortable while at war. Most of us would be appalled to be
the center of negative attention the way she is, but this
kind of combat gives her life meaning and she seems to thrive
on it. If she wasn't fighting
Chief Judge Hardcastle and all the other conspirators in
the courthouse, she'd be fighting someone else.
The next year and a half (til she gets booted by the
voters) will be very entertaining. Just when one conflict
gets settled, there will be another and another. This isn't
in Halverson's own long-term interests, but she can't help it.
Without an ongoing conflict, she has to face herself as the
pathetic little specimen that she is.
For $300,000, Everlyse Cabrera's foster parents will be free and clear of a civil lawsuit against them. Though the case alleges the couple failed to protect Everlyse while she was in their care, they won't actually have to pay for it.
The money is the maximum payout available on an insurance policy provided to all foster parents by Clark County. Manny and Vhee Carrascal claim they don't have any assets.
So, everyone gets a third, except the lawyers who plan to take 40-percent. That means $60,000 for Everlyse's mother, her father and for her, should she be found.
5/17/07:
Soapbox comments
(Family Court Chronicles)
The comments below were posted today to our Soapbox page. - Linkable
Entry
We've been in las vegas two years. People flock here because they think there is great opportunity. If you have the money that might be true. But to come here with your family, living paycheck to paycheck is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. My kids got snatched a year ago by DFS the people that were supposed to be helping us. We've been playing their damn games and all our wonderful case worker wants to do is terminate our parental rights. If the judge wouldn't have said in court that he wasn't going to take our kids away forever just because we were poor, we wouldn't be parents anymore. We live and breathe for our kids and are tired of being screwed around by this broken system. It's not my family's fault that they closed some cases and some kids dies. Why does my family have to pay for THEIR mistakes?
— mother who has missed way too much of her children's lives
Comments from the Webmaster
These comments are unusual for their coherence. Based on
the use of language alone, we are inclined to believe this person.
A lawsuit claiming that local and state child welfare agencies are failing to protect minors in foster care remains in play despite legal efforts to have it quashed.
In a 48-page order entered into the electronic court record on Monday, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones ruled on numerous motions to dismiss the lawsuit or release various government agencies, public employees and elected officials named as defendants.
The action, filed in August on behalf of families represented by the National Center for Youth Law, claims children in protective custody are endangered by the very system intended to safeguard them.
Jones denied all efforts by the state and county to have the action dismissed because the cases in question have been closed or because the plaintiffs involved lack the standing to bring a lawsuit.
District Judge Elizabeth Halverson filed an emergency motion with the Nevada Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking to force the District Court's chief judge to allow her back into the courthouse.
Halverson also asked the justices to order Chief Judge Kathy Hardcastle to justify actions she has taken against Halverson since April...
Halverson and the chief judge have a contentious past. Hardcastle fired her from a 2004 position as law clerk, a temporary job which Halverson held for nine years. Halverson then ran and nearly beat Hardcastle's then-husband for a family court position. Halverson ran last year for a District Court bench, won and became a judge in January.
Halverson said she envisions a coexistence with Hardcastle at the courthouse once the Supreme Court resolves the case.
I'll do my job; she'll do her job," Halverson said.
A Nevada Supreme Court commission on Tuesday endorsed making immediate changes to Clark County's system of appointing private lawyers to indigent defendants.
The commission, formed last month after the Review-Journal exposed the system's lack of standards and supervision, is examining indigent defense issues statewide....
A committee of local judges was waiting for the Supreme Court commission to weigh in before proceeding with its own proposed reforms to a system that has remained virtually untouched for more than 20 years. Tuesday's discussion allows the local judges to forge ahead.
District Judge Stewart Bell, who is heading the local committee, said it will meet in the next few days to polish its proposals. All Clark County district judges will likely vote on them in June. Annual contracts for conflict attorneys go into effect July 1....
Bell said the long-term solution requires creating a formal office with full-time public defenders to handle conflict cases.
WASHINGTON -- Shortcomings in how Clark County cares for abused children were aired before a congressional panel on Tuesday, with the consultant who uncovered major problems telling lawmakers the county refused his offers to help fix the system.
Ed Cotton, testifying before a House subcommittee, was critical of Clark County Family Services, saying the agency hesitated to accept the magnitude of what he found in the child welfare system.
"I'm just concerned that some of their reaction was, 'Let's try to make the problem seem less than it is,' rather than, 'We've got a problem; let's fix it,' " said Cotton, former director of New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services....
Cotton said he offered to work with Clark County Family Services before the report was made public to help the agency develop a strategy to fix the problems, but his offer was refused.
"I repeatedly asked Clark County staff do you want to do this together, so we can talk about not just what's in it but where we're going from here and we know about it and we're fixing it," he said. "And I was repeatedly told, 'That's a good idea,' and it never happened."
As far as Cotton's offer to help, Morton said, he was unaware of an offer being made.
"I don't think you'll find a statement from this agency to say in any way this problem is less serious than it is," Morton said. "We've worked to provide greater transparency.
A man is accused of beating a toddler within an inch of her life. But prosecutors tell the I-Team the case against him is not moving forward. In fact, on paper, it doesn't exist....
Hashemi's case progressed to preliminary hearing, but instead of calling her first witness, Prosecutor Vickie Munroe dismissed the charges claiming she planned to take the case to the grand jury.
"Because issues have arisen, we have decide to not proceed today," Prosecutor Munroe stated. I want the record to reflect that it will be our intent to seek an indictment in this case."
Sources tell the I-Team the grand jury never heard it. And now, five months later, it appears Hashemi has had the last word.
His attorney filed a petition to have the case sealed. The district attorney's office signed off and Judge Nancy Oesterle stamped the order.
Tom Carroll, with the Clark County District Attorney's office, said, "In a criminal case, if a person is merely accused of a crime and those charges are later dismissed, I think the presumption is to the contrary of keeping it open. A person has a right to have their record sealed if they meet the statutory requirements."
Children stuck in the foster care system have won a victory in their rights. Foster children will now be appointed a legal advocate to represent their rights and wants in court.
A federal judge has ruled Nevada's foster children have enforceable rights under the law.
Among the issues upheld by the judge's ruling is the right for foster parents to be heard in court and for families to receive timely written case plans.
Comments from the Webmaster
This is the kind of story that means nothing by itself,
because it is conveying information solely from
one side of the legal battle.
We don't know what the news in the lawsuit really is,
but we assume it is much more complicated than conveyed here.
A Clark County district court judge remains off the bench after a security violation last week where she brought two personal bodyguards past courthouse security.
Monday, the Channel 8 I-Team exclusively obtained videotape of the incident, which prompted Judge Elizabeth Halverson to call 911 and request police come to her chambers.
The state Supreme Court on Friday assigned a senior judge to indefinitely replace District Judge Elizabeth Halverson, who court officials say breached courthouse security.
Officials changed the locks and deactivated the rookie judge's key card to enter secured areas on Thursday night after Chief Judge Kathy Hardcastle barred her from entering the Regional Justice Center. The lockout is in place until Halverson agrees to meet with court officials, who have said the judge has grown increasingly paranoid that everyone is against her.
"She's created something in her mind that just doesn't exist," Hardcastle said Friday....
Senior Judge Stephen Huffaker will preside over her department starting Monday.
Judge Elizabeth Halverson isn't allowed into the Regional Justice Center after she hired private security guards and allowed them to bypass courthouse security. A court order was issued just before 6 p.m. Thursday.
Only the Channel 8 I-Team has Judge Halverson's side of the story.
The District Court chief judge on Thursday banned District Judge Elizabeth Halverson from the county courthouse.
In an administrative order, Chief Judge Kathy Hardcastle said Halverson jeopardized security at the courthouse this week by bringing her own two bodyguards into the courthouse and allowing them to bypass security checks.
"Judge Halverson's actions in utilizing unauthorized and unknown bodyguards constitute a breach of courthouse security, which creates a potential danger to the judges, the public and the occupants of the Regional Justice Center," Hardcastle wrote.
On Thursday, Presiding Judges Stewart Bell, Art Ritchie and Betsy Gonzalez recommended to Hardcastle that she bar Halverson from the bench until Halverson agrees to meet with them and "provide assurances that her disruptive behavior and threats to courthouse security will no longer continue," according to the administrative order Hardcastle signed.
Halverson hired the two guards, Stephen Fortune and Nickolas Starling, Wednesday because the bailiff she hired in January, Johnny Jordan, had been reassigned in April and Halverson felt she wasn't adequately protected by the other bailiffs that had been pulling temporary duty in her courtroom, said Michael Sommermeyer, court spokesman....
Court administrator Chuck Short went up with Spoor and two bailiffs on Wednesday to get Spoor's personal items and found Halverson locked in her office with her personal security guards, Spoor said.
As they searched the assistant area of the chamber for Spoor's items about 4:10 p.m., Halverson called Las Vegas police alleging there was a threat of some sort against her.
Police called the bailiffs, who are in charge of security at the courthouse. Her security guards told a responding bailiff they were protecting her.
Sommermeyer said that's when court officials first learned of her bodyguards.
Comments from the Webmaster
Although this article oncerns the criminal court, it is relevant to Family Court in that Halverson once ran against Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle and nearly won.
Thank God we didn't have her here!
(Family Court Chronicles would have been very busy.)
Given the chance, the father charged with decking several bailiffs in Family Court would wallop them again.
"The same situation would result," said Geoffrey Wells, who was convicted of three battery-related gross misdemeanors and one misdemeanor in the altercation.
District Judge James Bixler on Thursday ran the sentences concurrently. With the 127 days in custody that Wells already has served, that gives him about six months in jail.
The offenses were probational, but defense attorney Casey Landis said Wells, 36, did not want to be released under supervision.
CARSON CITY -- Preventing judges from easily sealing court cases could allow stalkers to find the addresses of the people they target, Clark County Chief District Judge Kathy Hardcastle testified Wednesday.
"Courts are the place for people to bring their private disputes to obtain an orderly resolution," Hardcastle told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Citizens should not be required to give up all their rights to privacy."
Hardcastle asked the committee to kill Assembly Bill 519, which would block judges from sealing court records unless they determine open court records would create a danger to the public.
5/9/07:
Opposition to SB356
(Family Court Chronicles/Glenn Campbell)
Written testimony in opposition to a bill in Nevada Legislature that would change the procedures when a child is removed from a home. - Linkable
Entry
The new law would encourage removals for reasons other than the immediate safety of the child. Removals could be done for punitive reasons. For example, if an investigator doesn’t like the attitude of a parent, he could “pretend” to take the children away but only hold them for 24 hours and never be accountable to a court for this action. This would put extraordinary power in the hands of investigators that would not be checked by any court.
D.A. Juvenile Division Chief Teresa Lowry testifies in opposition
to SB356, a bill in the Nevada Legislature that would change the
standards and procedures for the removal of a child from the
home when abuse or neglect is alleged. Also shown is (left-to-right)
Judge Gerald Hardcastle, Hearing Master Frank Sullivan, an
unidentified spectator for another bill, and
Assistant District Attorney Bob Teuton, Teresa's boss.
The bill had received stiff opposition and had been extensively
revised by the time of the hearing. At this point, it appears
that it won't go anywhere. (Although we would never predict its
death until it happens.)
CARSON CITY -- A bill aimed at reducing the need for judges to raise campaign funds passed the Senate on Tuesday and goes to the governor.
Assembly Bill 505, which would change the time line for judicial candidates to file for office, passed the Senate on a unanimous vote. The bill, sought by the Supreme Court, won unanimous support from the Assembly earlier this year.
Under the bill, candidates for Supreme Court, District Court and lower court judicial positions except for municipal court judges would have to file for office during the first two weeks in January. They now file during two weeks in May with the candidates for other elective offices.
The hows and whys behind individual cases of child death in Nevada may continue to be withheld from the public.
On Monday, State Director of Health and Human Services Mike Willden asked a Senate committee to jettison three sections of a proposed bill submitted by an agency he supervises.
The child welfare legislation in question, Assembly Bill 263, now includes a provision that would have subjected local child death review teams to the state's open meeting law. The bill draft also would have required the teams to release meeting summaries to the public.
Willden explained to the members of the Senate Committee on Human Resources and Education that members of the local child death review teams -- made up of representatives from law enforcement, medicine, child welfare and schools -- were concerned that requiring public meetings would restrict the scope of their work because much of the information they deal with is confidential under the law.
Comments from the Webmaster
A muddy article that conveys little understanding of what is
going on.
AB147, which would ban kids under 6 from Child Haven, merited only
on paragraph.
5/7/07:
Partial Opposition to AB147 (Child Haven Age Restriction Bill)
(Family Court Chronicles/Glenn Campbell)
Written testimony in opposition to a bill in Nevada Legislature to restrict the placement of children under 6 at Child Haven. (Campbell says the bill should apply only to children under 3.) - Linkable
Entry
AB147 imposes a naĂŻve and simplistic standard which says that foster care is always better than group care for children aged 3-5, without exception. In fact, group care is sometimes the most appropriate and humane option, especially for very short stays of a couple of days. Only caseworkers who know the child and his circumstances can determine which placement is best.
Certain qualities associated with wisdom recur in the academic literature: a clear-eyed view of human nature and the human predicament; emotional resiliency and the ability to cope in the face of adversity; an openness to other possibilities; forgiveness; humility; and a knack for learning from lifetime experiences. And yet as psychologists have noted, there is a yin-yang to the idea that makes it difficult to pin down. Wisdom is founded upon knowledge, but part of the physics of wisdom is shaped by uncertainty. Action is important, but so is judicious inaction. Emotion is central to wisdom, yet detachment is essential.
Clark County's Civil Commitment Court is set up to determine whether someone should be involuntarily committed to a mental institution. It hears about 130 cases each week.
The patients are referred to the court from public hospital emergency rooms and private mental health facilities such as Monte Vista. The cases are referred, and patients are committed, if officials believe that patients appear to be a danger to themselves or others, and that their behavior is caused by mental illness and not drug addiction or a medical condition.
In 2006, according to Family Court statistics, there were 2,548 new court filings, up from 2,164 the year before.
Last year 1,430 additional cases were reopened on people who already had cases referred to the court. The court could not cite specifically what percentage of those patients were issued commitment orders, though many factors point to that number being small.
Comments from the Webmaster
We suggested this topic to the reporter about a month
ago. Here is our own photo of the court, which was lacking
in the Sun article...
CARSON CITY -- The license of a Las Vegas lawyer who regularly appears on KVBC-TV, Channel 3, was temporarily suspended Tuesday by the Supreme Court, pending resolution of disciplinary proceedings against him.
In the order, the Supreme Court said lawyer Douglas C. Crawford "appears to have misappropriated over $100,000 in client funds" and has commingled his personal funds with client funds.
"Additionally, he has attempted to prevent clients from complaining to the State Bar, and has failed to respond to bar counsel's repeated inquiries," the order notes.
Comments from the Webmaster
We have never met Mr. Crawford, but we once attended a juvenile hearing
where he phoned in his appearance (via speakerphone in the courtroom).
We know, however, that he is more than a virtual entity, because in October 2006
we caught a glimpse of his famous Jaguar in the parking lot at Family Court...
He is said to buy a new Jag every year or two. ($100,000 in
client funds could easily pay for a fresh one.)
Mr. Crawford represented the now ex-wife of our webmaster in
their divorce proceedings. In our opinion, he took her money and
did nothing for her,
so there are not a lot of tears being shed at this website for
Mr. Crawford's current misfortune.
Mr. Crawford strikes us as one of those
lawyers who have gone over to Satan. (We must emphasize, however,
that we have no proof of this, as Satan was not available for
comment.)
BTW: As of 5/3,
Mr. Crawford's suspension is not yet reflected in the Nevada Bar's
online bar
record for him.
In February, Clark County Family Services reported that children involved in 55 cases red-flagged by an independent consultant were accounted for and safe.
On Monday, after two months of sifting through child welfare case files, the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services issued a different finding.
"State reviewers determined eight cases needed additional follow up by Clark County Department of Family Services to evaluate the safety of the children," said the state's final report, which will be posted on its Web site today.
THIS WEBSITE IS NOT FREE!
If you use this website for more than one hour (cumulatively),
you are required to pay a user fee of $5 per hour. MORE INFORMATION
5/30/07:
Outlook improves for child welfare: Agency under higher scrutiny after boy's death last year
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/Lisa Kim Bach)
Entities:
Lisa Kim Bach (author),
Lou Palma (quoted),
Ron Davidson (quoted),
Tom Morton (quoted),
Jon Porter (quoted),
DFS (subject) 
5/24/07:
Report pans Halverson: Bailiff says he felt like 'house boy'
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/K.C. Howard)
Entities:
Elizabeth Halverson (subject),
Kathy Hardcastle (mentioned) 
5/22/07:
Panel opens debate over sealing of records: Commission tackles secrecy in court cases
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/Lisa Kim Bach)
Entities:
Lisa Kim Bach (author),
Nevada Supreme Court (hearings at) 
5/21/07:
I-Team Exclusive: Judge Halverson Reveals Illegal Ticket Fixing
(KLAS-TV/George Knapp)
Entities:
Elizabeth Halverson (subject),
Michael Sommermeyer (quoted) 
5/21/07:
UPDATE: Prosecutor: Child abuse charges still possibility
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/Lisa Kim Bach)
Nothing new. Entities:
Selena Celebi (case) 
5/21/07:
Parents of Missing Foster Child Get Settlement Money
(KLAS-TV/Colleen McCarty)
Entities:
Everlyse Cabrera (settlement) 
5/17/07:
[California]
A family defined by love
(Los Angeles Times/Sandy Banks)
5/16/07:
District judge asks justices to settle fight: Halverson challenges ban from courthouse
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/kch)
Concerns criminal court only, Entities:
Elizabeth Halverson (subject),
Kathy Hardcastle (mentioned),
criminalcourt (concerning) 
5/16/07:
Court Seals Case Against Accused Child Beater, Hashemi
(KLAS-TV/cm)
Entities:
Selena Celebi (case of) 
5/14/07:
Nevada's Foster Children Have Rights, Federal Judge Rules
(KLAS-TV/cm)
Entities:
Bill Grimm (quoted) 
5/11/07:
District Court Judge Banned From Regional Justice Center
(KLAS-TV/ms)
Includes video of Halverson (for 7 days) and a link to the actual 3-page court order banning Halverson. 
5/11/07:
Judge Halverson banned from courthouse
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/gc)
, a bill in the Nevada Legislature that would change the
standards and procedures for the removal of a child from the
home when abuse or neglect is alleged. Also shown is (left-to-right)
Judge Gerald Hardcastle, Hearing Master Frank Sullivan, an
unidentified spectator for another bill, and
Assistant District Attorney Bob Teuton, Teresa's boss.
