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March 29, 2024 1:51 am
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EDITORIAL: The Way Things Should Be

In the real world we often find that there is ‘the way things should be’ – and then there is ‘the way things are’. Usually ‘the way things are’ ends up falling far short of the way we envision that they should be. But every once in a while we come across some little corner of the universe where ‘the way things should be’ is actually just the way that they are. In those serendipitous moments one should always be very careful about looking for ways to fix or reform something where nothing is broken.

One of those rare cases is in the outlying justice courts of Clark County. To be clear, we are not speaking in support of any specific rural court judge; nor are we endorsing any policies or procedures used in the courts. Rather we refer to the more general way that the local courts are structured and how they are allowed to function in harmony with community values. In a county where decision-making has become so centralized, where local government has drifted so far from being truly local, and where the needs of small rural areas are so often lost amid the clamour of a vast urban landscape; the rural courts alone have maintained their much needed local control and focus.

And rightly so. After all, the day-to-day function of a rural court is worlds apart from that of courtrooms in the dense urban areas. Crime rates in rural communities are admittedly miniscule in comparison to those of the city. And what little crime does exist in the outlying areas may be viewed as utterly inconsequential when compared to the magnitude of offenses that routinely come before the Las Vegas courts.

But they are not minor to us! Rural residents, by and large, are law abiding and peace-loving people. Many have come to live in small towns for no other reason than to get away from the crime rates of the city. Moreover, small town crime is usually deeply personal in nature. The majority of illegal activity in the rurals always seems to hover around a relatively small group of people. Most folks know exactly who those people are. After all, there are no secrets kept in a small town. If something bad happens, people know the details of it in no time. They know who did it, what they did and to whom it was done. And they expect, even demand, that appropriate justice be meted out to prevent such things from happening again.

So it makes complete sense that each of the outlying communities be allowed to elect its own judge. Residents of each unique community choose amongst themselves who should preside over their court. The elections, when they happen, are usually hard fought and sometimes even nasty. That’s because folks are deadly serious about selecting a judge who is in full synchronization with the values of the community in regards to crime. And if their judge ever gets out of step with those values, you can bet your last nickle that the locals will elect someone else next time around. That is the way things should be. And it is the way things have been for many years in rural Clark County.

But there have long been pressures building against that ideal. The most recent example reared its head just last week in the Moapa Valley Justice Court. An Assistant District Attorney, sent out from the city for a day to work in the outlying courts, informed the judge that she would not be prosecuting a case; not because there was a lack of evidence for the prosecution to prevail, but rather because her big-city supervisors were worried about the sentence that the judge might give if the Defendant were found guilty. They fretted that this sentence was likely to be much more severe than what customarily takes place in urban courts for that particular offense; though it would have been well within what the judge was allowed by statute. They were troubled by the perceived inequity, though. So, rather than sticking to their job of simply prosecuting the case, they refused to press the charges. The judge’s hands were tied and he declared the case closed. By this action, the DA had forced a rural court to walk in step with a completely alien urban standard; a standard that is generally far below what is held by most rural residents and voters.

Of course, those urban standards do have their place. Rural residents are certainly ill-equipped to criticize the workings of the courts in Las Vegas. The justice system in that densely populated metropolis, a city which is world-renowned for its ‘anything goes’ lifestyle, is admittedly strapped for resources. Urban judges and prosecutors have their plates piling high with very serious crimes. There is, no doubt, little time for dealing with the types of relatively small matters that are usually the bread and butter of rural justice courts. For urban courts, that is just the way things are. We understand that.
But it is not so in rural courts. Here we have the luxury of holding a lower community tolerance for such things.

It is just as ridiculous to force the urban judicial mentality upon the rural courts as it would be for rural residents to expect small town judicial standards to be applied in the city. The differences in the communities are too fundamental. And that hits at the very heart of why the small outlying justice courts were established in the first place – to allow for those distinct community differences.

So is it really too much to ask that outlying communities be allowed to retain their local autonomy in this one area? Maybe it is true that the way things are done in the big city is more sophisticated and world-wise than the way they are done out here in the small towns. Maybe our problems are petty and provincial in the grand scheme of things. But they are our problems and they are serious to us. We have our own ideas, within the law, of how to deal with them; and we don’t need battle-worn and jaded urban “professionals” coming in and trying to reform a system that was never broken. Besides, in the end, who is to say which way is better, or which one is wrong?

Having independent outlying justice courts in Clark County, and having them presided over by locally-chosen judges, is the way that things should be. Fortunately, at least for now, it is also the way things are. Let’s just hope that no one gets any more bright ideas on how to ‘fix’ them.

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