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It is June 30, 2006. Now testifying on the witness stand is Chief Judge Steven Jones of the Family Court in Las Vegas, fighting for his political career in a somewhat irrelevant court hearing of no practical consequence. His ex-girlfriend, Amy McNair, has already testified for two hours, recounting with obvious vulnerability the judge's controlling, violent and abusive behavior over the course of their volatile five-year relationship. She said that at various times he smacked her to the floor, pushed her off a bed, and shoved her across a hallway, where she hit her face on a bannister.
Now, it's the judge's turn, and not surprisingly, we're getting a different story. McNair is a self-acknowledged alcoholic who falls down so often on her own that it is difficult to distinguish her self-imposed injuries from any that might have been inflicted by the judge. She slits her own wrists in theatrical suicide attempts, then refuses medical treatment. She beats on the judge herself, and he is powerless to respond. He has selflessly tried to help her kick her addiction and find stable employment, but to no avail, and now she has turned on him.
It is another murky day on the domestic violence calendar of the Clark County Family Court. Here is yet another case of He Said v. She Said, except now a judge himself is the object of the proceedings.
The Chief Judge, age 48, is a towering presence—some 300 pounds in Goliath's frame. This unfortunate genetic condition does not stand him well in the current circumstances. His 130-pound accuser, age 34, need only look over at him from the witness stand and say, "He's a big guy," to convey the point of her vulnerability.
Until 10 days ago, Jones was a towering political presence as well. As the lead judge of the court that oversees divorce, juvenile justice, child protection and, incidently, domestic violence, he was the twister of arms and the getter of things done who had the benefit of both "juice" and the relative anonymity to use it.
All of that changed when he committed the judicial and political faux pas of getting himself arrested on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge while wearing a t-shirt that read, "Who's Your Big Daddy?"
Now the judge, under questioning from his own lawyer, is recounting the night in question in excruciating detail.
THE WITNESS: "While I'm at Albertson's, I picked up, because there was no... I picked up some milk and I picked up some cereal and I picked up some miscellaneous munchies for the kids. So I did some grocery shopping."
McNair alleges that in the course of a fight concerning a Jack-in-the-Box chicken strip on June 14, Jones shoved her with sufficient force that she fell against a bannister and suffered some highly photogenic wounds to the right side of her face.
The initial news images were incredibly damaging to Jones. This slight and attractive woman had obviously suffered some sort of facial injury above and below her right eye, while the police mug shot of Jones—looking very un-judicial in his defiant stance and sinister goatee—all but proved his guilt. What sort of monster would brutalize such a defenseless woman?
Now, the judge's public image is in meltdown, as one embarrassing revelation after another hits the press. There have been multiple police interventions at his suburban home, resulting in at least four prior arrests of household members. In 1996, Jones was involved in a domestic dispute that sent his pregnant wife to jail. They were later divorced. In 2002, Jones gave his own teenage daughter a "serious time out" by having her locked up in the adult holding cells at the Family Court—rather an unusual discipline option not available to the rest of us. All of these incidents suggest that this professional arbiter of families may not be entirely in control of his own.
THE WITNESS: "On the way back, as I pulled out of Albertson's, there's a Jack in the Box in front. So as I pulled out, Isaac said he was hungry, he wanted a hamburger. So I went over to Jack in the Box. He actually ended up ordering some chicken strips and I ordered a hamburger and we went home."
A local newspaper columnist has called for Jones' resignation. He writes: "Perhaps some political mechanic somewhere can re-craft that badly scorched image, but I wouldn't bet on it. From here, his judicial tenure appears charred beyond recognition."
Jones' political and professional problems are huge (and are no doubt still evolving as you read this), but they are not the intended subject of the current hearing. The question today is fairly simple: Should a Temporary Protective Order (TPO) against Jones be approved? This is not a criminal prosecution; that circus will have to wait for later. This is a separate question of whether Jones should be required to stay 300 yards away from McNair and refrain from contacting her. Such a conclusion would be based on credible allegations of domestic violence but not necessarily "proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
THE WITNESS: "Then Amy looked up over the couch. She says, 'What did you bring me?'
"And I said, 'Amy, I didn't bring you anything.'"
These proceedings are now unfolding in the Senior Judge's Courtroom on the top floor of a private office building across the street from the main courthouse in downtown Las Vegas. This is not the normal place for a TPO hearing, but this is not a normal litigant. This is the Chief Judge of the Family Court, so the usual employees who handle such matters have an obvious conflict. So does every other judge in town, it seems, so for this hearing a retired judge has been flown in from Reno.
I am seated in the back of the courtroom along with a dozen members of the media. TV cameras have been excluded but not still cameras and reporters. The news trucks and their cameramen must simmer on the street below, in 100+ degree heat, as the hearing drags on from morning into late afternoon.
Also left fuming on the sidewalk are several female domestic violence activists who for some unfathomable reason have been excluded from this ostensibly public hearing. I know that they will never let this go, as it fits nicely into their conspiracy theories of women suppressed by authority. I can hear axes being ground and knives sharpened. I think they want to eat the judge's liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
I am not really a neutral journalist, even if I have been graciously treated as such, but I'm not one of the Hannibals on sidewalk either. I am a "Family Court Observer," a title I have invented for myself to describe one who thrives on the misery of others. I have been wrung through the court system myself in various capacities, and in catharsis I have returned as a sort of courthouse groupie, sitting in on cases that are none of my business and occasionally emitting an opinion or two.
THE WITNESS: "So I just cracked the door open, and when I opened the door, I saw her eating Isaac's chicken strips."
My interests are clinical. I like to watch relationships collapse. It is not that I want to see people suffer, which both the judge and his accuser are obviously doing; I just think there is something important in keeping your eyes open to all that is happening in the world. The end of a relationship is not a reprehensible event. It is something existential and essential to us all.
We live in a society that is obsessed with attraction. In the movies, boy meets girl; they overcome some difficulties; they fall in love; they kiss; end of movie. Turns out, that's not the end of the story. The kiss is just the beginning of a whole lot of ambiguity, complexity and even animosity. You can never fully understand love if all you see is the "falling in." You also have to view the "falling out."
Is the previous passage too choppy?
Temporary Protective Orders in domestic violence cases are normally handled in Courtroom 1 at the Family Court. The building itself is a low, corporate-looking structure in a suburban neighborhood, separate from the criminal court downtown. It is landscaped with palm trees and offers its guests the unusual court amenity of ample free parking. "The Happiest Place on Earth," some bailiffs jokingly call it, and I have come to agree—unless you happen to be involved in litigation here, seeking to dissolve that which God hath joined. In that case, it is more like the medical center you are forced to visit to have your leg amputated.
The proceedings in Courtroom 1 are the closest thing to Judge Judy that you are going to find in the court system. The parties usually arrive without lawyers and sit alone at their respective tables. The judge (or credible facsimile) asks them pointed questions; colorful accusations and counter-accusations are then expressed; and the judge issues a ruling on the spot. The parties are ushered out, and we go to commercial.
The proceedings, usually lasting fifteen minutes or less, are recorded automatically on video, which, with only minimal editing, would probably make a viable TV series on Fox. She says he threatened to kill her. He says she slapped him across the face. She found another woman's panties in their bedroom. He isn't going to give back her dog until she pays him the thousand dollars she owes him. She wants him to admit the affair. He wants her out of the house that he is paying for. Both of them want immediate custody of their children and want the other party to pay, pay, pay for what they have done.
The challenge for the judge is to keep the drama focussed on the essential question: Is there a credible threat of violence sufficient that the requesting party (the "Applicant") needs to be legally protected from an alleged aggressor (the "Adverse Party"). The rules of evidence here are relatively loose, and the issue only needs to be resolved "to the satisfaction of the court," not to the higher standards required in criminal proceedings.
I have lurked in the back of Courtroom 1 during dozens of these entertaining segments. Although they are mainly "He said/She said," with little corroborated evidence, it is interesting how quickly the truth comes out anyway, especially under the questioning of a judge who has heard it all before. One person's position is usually more coherent and stable, while the other party becomes increasingly angry, flustered and irrelevant as the questioning continues. By the end of the hearing, you know exactly who the bad guy is, and sometimes it is the person applying for the TPO.
"Bad guy" is a misrepresentation, however. In domestic violence, things are rarely black and white but various shades of gray. Every relationship here is a "system," with some dysfunctional wheels turning on both sides. The Applicant, no matter how apparently innocent, somehow managed to get themselves into this mess on their own. At some point in the past, there was probably an element of delusion and wishful thinking that encouraged them to ignore the evidence that was right in front of their face.
It was love, of course—that exquisite disease—and now, even as the parties claim to despise each other, love may still be holding them together.
"Ms. McNair, Do you still love Steven Jones?" said the judge from Reno.
Right away, I know that things are heading into soap opera territory. It is a question I have never heard uttered in all the other TPO hearings I have attended. What's love got to do with it? The guy either injured you, or he didn't. You either want this protective order, or you don't. The only issue before the court is whether specific acts or threats of violence occurred in the past and whether physical protection is required in the future. Inquiring into the Applicant's inner subjective passions is irrelevant at best, prejudicial at worst. At the least, it draws the proceedings into all the messy ambiguities of the relationship—which, as a voyeur, I am more than happy to hear.
"I'm afraid of him." says McNair on the witness stand. "I was confused, and now, actually, I look back and think maybe I wasn't in love. He did so many things to me, I was just, you know, I think he got me there for security. I was putty in his hands.
"No, I'm totally afraid of him. I am wicked afraid. I'm more afraid of him now than ever because of everything I know, what he knows that I know. It's not just the domestic violence. It's everything that I know about him. It goes beyond this."
"I just want to know from your heart whether you still have a feeling of love and affection towards him." saay the judge.
"Absolutely not," says the witness, under oath.
Please file this statement for future reference.
The direct examination of the witness proceeds.
QUESTION (from the attorney for McNair): When did you first meet Steven E. Jones.
ANSWER (from McNair): Back in 2000.
Q: Where were you?
A: At Hooter's when I met him.
Q: What were you doing?
A: I was a waitress at Hooter's.
Q: As a result of that meeting, did you have a dating relationship?
A: Yes. We started dating a little while after his bailiff introduced us together. We went out, the first date was the night of February 13. Valentine's Day. We stayed at Mt. Charleston for the evening.
Q: Was this dating relationship one where there was an expectation of affection?
A: Yes, absolutely.
Q: And did the relationship become one where you were more than just dating?
A: Yes.
Q: Could you explain to the Court when, if ever, you may have moved into the residence with Judge Jones.
A: Probably within two and a half, three months after that.
Q: When you met him, what did you understand him to be?
A: A wonderful person. Beautiful, good looking.
Q: Did you know what he did for a living?
A: Yes. He was a judge.
Q: Did you meet anybody else with him at that time?
A: When I met him?
Q: Yes.
A. At first his bailiff introduced us.
Hmmm.... So this is how judges pick up chicks. They meet them at Hooters, then arrange to have their bailiffs set up dates. "A very important judge would very much like to see you."
I must point out that Hooters is a respectable American restaurant chain. (In 2000, it was not yet a casino.) It is not a strip club or anything like that. It just happens to emphasize, well, hooters—i.e. the bosoms, boobs, bazookas of their shapely waitresses, always tastefully covered of course. It's a classy joint, you understand, not exploitative at all.
The testimony continues....
Q: Just to follow up on the Judge's question, was that always the case that you didn't love him?
A: No. I tried. I tried.
Q: Were you ever, did you ever consider yourself the judge's fiancee?
A: Yes.
Q: Was it your expectation that at one point you might marry?
A: Yes, absolutely, I thought.
Q: Did you have sexual relations.
A: Numerous times.
[OBJECTION! No, that's not opposing counsel speaking; that's me talking to myself. Let's cut to the domestic violence, please!]
Q: In your relationship, can you identify an event of domestic violence that occurred, that first incident?
A: The first incident was back a couple of years ago, and it's the bathroom floor incident where he says I fell down, but I remember him grabbing me and putting my down in the bathroom.
Okay, now we're talking turkey. If I may summarize McNair's lengthy testimony, she says there were at least four specific incidences of violence against her by Jones, spaced over several years: One in which he "slammed" her head on a bathroom floor; another where he "kicked" her off the side of their bed, a third when he "karate chopped" her off a couch, and a fourth where he "chucked" her across a hallway—the incident for which he was arrested.
She says that in each case, she was physically injured, even incapacitated, and Jones failed to render aid. Following the bathroom incident, for example, "he went right out and went into the garage.... I just laid there. I cried out to him, but he was in the garage making some kind of tool thing."
Typical male!
McNair acknowledges in her testimony that although Jones himself does not drink, she is an alcoholic, and she was intoxicated at least during the bathroom incident.
Q: Just to digress on the alcohol issue: When you met Steve Jones, do you believe you were an alcoholic at that time?
A: No, absolutely not.
Q: Do you believe that after you met the judge that you became an alcoholic?
A: Even more so because living with him was like it was a coping mechanism with everything that I got with him. Everything that I received either verbally, mentally or physically, that's what it was.
And he would even buy me alcohol. I would get told you can have a drink. Then the next day you got drunk and he's pissed and he didn't talk to you.
We went to Indy [the Indianapolis 500] just recently and I asked for a glass of wine. Instead of buying a glass of wine, he goes, "Why not get the whole bottle, just get a bottle."
If I'm such a bad person and such an alcoholic, it's okay to give you the bottle, but see, it displeased him because he wanted something else. And the thing is, as a result of getting me drunk is his way of whatever he wants me to do. When he wants to go gambling for seven hours and I have to sit there and watch him, it's okay to have a drink, but God forbid....
Q: Did you ever attempt to go through a rehabilitation program?
A: Yes. Well, I went through AA three times a day in October of last year and I actually came back and was sober for 92 days, 92 days, until Steve was doing other things and I found out and....
He is so controlling is what I'm trying to say.
At this point, I am beginning to get a feeling for Amy McNair's personality. She comes across as very sincere, likeable and vulnerable, and after a few minutes of her testimony, I am tempted to take care of her myself. As the testimony continues, however, I ask, "What is wrong with this picture?"
I don't believe that McNair is lying on the stand, but I don't necessarily believe that her testimony is accurate either. Like all of us, she is seeing the world through a special emotional filter: greens are seen as blues, etc. Even before I hear her cross-examination or the testimony of Jones, I am getting a sense for how her brain works and how her perception of events might be distorted.
Yes, she may have gone to Alcoholics Anonymous, but did she really absorb its principles? Is it Jones' fault that she is an alcoholic? If she asks for a glass of wine, and he buys her a whole bottle, is he forcing her to drink it?
It is a subtle defect in every alcoholic's worldview, and correcting it is the key to staying sober: I am not responsible for my drinking; someone else is. Steve made me an alcoholic. Steve gave me a whole bottle of wine knowing how weak I am. It's not my fault.
Okay, if that's going to be your attitude, then 92 days will probably be as far as you go.
After attending an out-of-state alcohol treatment program, she returned to live with Jones, but again he drove her to drink.
"I found out Steve was doing other bad things and it stressed me out how he needed me and he wanted me to go. And it was always just — it was either you're out, you're in, you're out. I love you. I don't love you. I just started to here we go again, and I started drinking."
"I have begged him for counseling," she says in later testimony. Jones, she says, ridiculed her counseling efforts and refused to participate in them when the counselor requested it. He discouraged her from taking the medications prescribed for her. He bought her alcohol when it served his purposes, then he denigrated her as a drunk.
McNair's obvious vulnerability is perhaps a fatal flaw. You could call it the Puppy Dog Syndrome. You look into those big, doleful eyes and just want to take care of her.
Another way of looking at it is an addiction to victimhood.
Throughout her testimony, McNair is always the vulnerable and helpless child, and Jones is always the giver of all things, the taker of all things, the fixer of all problems, and the unquestioned ruler of her life. He is responsible for her addiction and for her failure to lick it. He provides most of her financial support. He is the white knight who sweeps her off her feet, but he is also the villain who suppresses and defeats her at every turn. He is 14 years her senior, a powerful judge in the Family Court, and until he magically appeared, she was a waitress at Hooters.
In other words, Jones is a god, a superhero in a mask and cape. In McNair's eyes, he is capable of anything, both good and bad.
I've been there myself, so I understand the syndrome. It feels good to swoop down from outers space, save the day and be worshipped for it, but there is another side of super power that you don't often hear about. Superheroes, once you get used to them, are sometimes expected to do impossible things, like heal the problems that are really inside someone else. The expectations of gods and superheroes are very high, infinite sometimes, and whenever one fails to perform, he can be seen, very quickly, as a devil.
On the witness stand, McNair speaks with great pride about her work in the Family Court. She is a temporary Judicial Executive Assistant (JEA). She says she has worked for Judges Jones, Miley, Brown and Del Vecchio in the Family Court and Judge Bell in the criminal court. JEAs aren't mere gofers but are at the top of the secretarial food chain in Family Court. How does a Hooters girl move directly into such a prestigious position? Big Daddy, of course.
McNair also testifies that she has recently been given the permanent job of bailiff for Judge Anthony Del Vecchio, although she hasn't yet started work.
"Steve called me and said that you're going to go in as a JEA for a little while for Judge Del Vecchio. And then his bailiff was on leave. Anyway, we knew that his bailiff wasn't going to come back.
"So I shook hands in Judge Del Vecchio's chambers. He called down to court administration and gave me a salary and I was bailiff. They even sent me a card for some thing. It says Bailiff, Judge Del Vecchio."
The judge from Reno then asks from the bench: "Ms. McNair, as you began to learn about being a judicial assistant, did you feel proud of yourself that you were kind of moving up a career path that was exciting to you?"
"Absolutely, absolutely," replies McNair. "Very much excited. I really liked it. I felt real good."
It turns out that her job as a JEA is not terribly time-consuming. She acknowledges on cross-examination that she worked only four days in the month proceeding Jones' arrest. She credits this poor attendance to "pneumonia," while the opposing side attributes it to her drinking binges.
Nonetheless, I can see that her work in the courthouse is a rare source of pride. She also glows when she speaks about her new job as bailiff, a position she obtained, it seems, without the formality of applying for it and no apparent law enforcement experience.
I'm thinking to myself: "But who got you this job, you ninny? How can you get much pride from an obvious set-up that your Big Daddy gave you?"
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Vegas, NV 89173.
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