Former Bailiff to Suspended Judge: ‘Why?‘

Legal Ethics

Former Bailiff to Suspended Judge: ‘Why?‘

Posted Aug 5, 2008, 01:44 pm CST
By Martha Neil

Although it had been more than a year since Johnnie Jordan worked as a bailiff for suspended District Judge Elizabeth Halverson, he broke down yesterday in a disciplinary hearing in Las Vegas as he testified that she had treated him like her personal slave.

Overwhelmed, Jordan, 39, shouted at the Judicial Discipline Commission and Halverson that she had stripped him of his dignity, then began weeping, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

"I can't stand what she did to me! My question is why?" Jordan shouted. He testified that Halverson, who has been suspended with pay since last summer, "made him rub her feet and neck and wrapped her arm around him when he chauffeured her to judges' meetings," as the newspaper puts it.

Staffers said previously that Halverson, who weighs more than 425 pounds, and gets around in an electric scooter, also ordered Jordan to pick up papers, cookie crumbs and sunflower seeds from the floor of her chambers, an earlier ABA Journal article recounts. "Halverson, the bailiff and other staffers alleged, would sometimes throw items on the floor and order Jordan to pick them up."

Jordan has filed an employment discrimination claim over the way he contends the judge treated him.

"Halverson has maintained that she has been unfairly targeted by court staff because of long-standing animosity between her and Chief District Judge Kathy Hardcastle," the newspaper notes.

Earlier coverage:

ABAJournal.com: "Vegas Judge Accused of Trying to Make Discipline Case a ‘Laughingstock’"

ABA Journal - Law News Now

Legal Ethics