Left: Clark County District Court Judge Erika Ballou appears in an image with two public defenders; Right: Ballou appears in a selfie. (Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline)
A Las Vegas judge who posted selfies in a hot tub with two public defenders and made inappropriate remarks about police will be publicly censured for violating Nevada state judicial conduct rules.
Clark County District Court Judge Erika Ballou, 52, will have to complete the National Judicial College online course, “Judicial Ethics and Social Media: A Lightning Course,” and will familiarize herself with sections on social media and judicial ethics in the “Judicial Conduct Reporter,” a publication of the National Center for State Courts Center for Judicial Ethics, according to a stipulation and order of consent to public censure filed with the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline on Tuesday.
A spokesperson from the court told Law&Crime in an email late Friday that Ballou was unavailable for comment. But in the Commission’s document, Ballou said her social media posts were intended to be private and not publicly disseminated.
As Law&Crime reported, Ballou was hit with two charges by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline on Jan. 24.
The charging document identifies the first disciplinary offense as an Instagram post about the judge’s attendance at iHeartRadio’s Life is Beautiful music festival on Sept. 19, 2021.
Ballou posted at 10:46 p.m. that Billie Eilish was scheduled to start in 30 minutes. It was a seemingly late-in-the-evening start time for a judge with “an 8:30 calendar tomorrow.”
The post also contained the hashtag: “VacateTheS—OuttaOutOfCustodyCases”
Special counsel Francis Flaherty alleged the Instagram post violated a rule requiring judges “to comply with the law.” The charging document also alleges Ballou violated two rules about refraining from actions that might cause someone to question “the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary.” The Instagram post also allegedly violated a rule requiring that the “duties of judicial office” take “precedence over all of a judge’s personal and extrajudicial activities.”
The second count against Ballou was over a Facebook post featuring a picture of herself in a hot tub with two other attorneys — a man and a woman, both public defenders. Both women wear bikini tops, and the man is shirtless.
The post is captioned: “Robson is surrounded by great t—.”
The Facebook post allegedly violated the same rules about complying with the law and maintaining “the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary.” Additionally, the charging document alleges Ballou violated a rule requiring judges not to “convey or permit others to convey the impression that any person or organization is in a position to influence the judge.”
The judge responded to the allegations against her in a Facebook post quoting the Cardi B song “Get Up 10.”
“Went from makin’ tuna sandwiches to makin’ the news,” the post reads. “I started speakin’ my mind and tripled my views.”
The commission’s order says she will not be punished for that post.
Ballou also acknowledged comments she made in court in which she appeared skeptical of police officers’ ability to interact with Black people without resorting to fatal violence.
“[C]learly you’re not a black person in the United States of America, because there are absolute reasons to run from the police,” Ballou, who is Black, told a prosecutor in November 2021 in response to comments from the prosecutor that the defendant in the case had no reason to run away from cops, according to the order. “[S]o just as someone who, you know, has lived in the United States as a black person, that’s absolutely an untrue statement that he didn’t have any reason to run.”
The order also pointed to courtroom comments the judge made in July 2022.
“You’re a Black man in America, you know you don’t want to be nowhere where cops are,” Ballou said to a defendant. “You know you don’t want to be nowhere where cops are ’cause I know I don’t, and I’m a middle-aged, middle-class Black woman. I don’t want to be around where the cops are because I don’t know if I’m going to walk away alive or not.”
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson filed a new motion for her recusal this week to prevent her from hearing criminal cases after an earlier request by his office was denied, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. A media representative from the DA’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime.
Last month, Law&Crime reported that Ballou was removed from a case of a woman involved in an armed robbery whose sentence she vacated. The Nevada high court reversed Ballou’s order in 2022, but Ballou did not comply and did not instruct the defendant to go to prison. Ballou was again told to enforce the order, and again, Ballou did not, according to a May 3 court order. The state’s highest court ultimately ordered the defendant to complete the remainder of a 10-year prison sentence.
Law&Crime’s Colin Kalmbacher and Brandi Buchman contributed to this report.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
