Judge who handcuffed public defender to teach a ‘lesson’ gets own chastising

More than 100 defense attorneys filed ethics complaint alleging he has
‘complete disregard for law’ when putting lawyers and defendants in
custody for contempt

Dan Hernandez in Las Vegas
Friday 3 June 2016 12.00 BST

A Las Vegas judge was in the spotlight last week for ordering a public defender to be placed in handcuffs to teach her “a lesson” for speaking out in court. But on Wednesday, judge Conrad Hafen received his own chastising.

A group of 150 defense attorneys filed an ethics complaint alleging that he shows “a complete disregard for the law” when putting lawyers and defendants in custody for contempt.

The complaint, brought by Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice (NACJ) and first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, claims that the judge’s mercurial rulings have on several occasions deprived people of proper defense hearings and even resulted in unnecessary jail time.

On 23 May, deputy public defender Zohra Bakhtary sat in a jury box next to inmates in jail attire as Hafen finished the hearing during which she was handcuffed. He sentenced Bakhtary’s client to six months in jail for petit larceny without an attorney by the man’s side, which the ethics complaint called a “callous disregard for the defense function, the dignity of defense counsel and the integrity of the criminal justice system”.

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