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 judge in Las Vegas, Nevada, is facing disciplinary charges over a series of social media posts. After the charges were filed, the judge posted again: a selfie captioned with defiant Cardi B lyrics.
Clark County District Court Judge Erika Ballou was hit with two charges by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline on Jan. 24.
For each charge, the judge stands accused of violating four specific ethical rules and is accused of violating five separate rules in total.
The 10-page charging document obtained by Law&Crime identifies the first disciplinary offense as an Instagram post that refers to the judge’s attendance at a music festival on Sept. 19, 2021.
During her attendance at iHeartRadio’s Life is Beautiful, at 10:46 p.m., Ballou allegedly posted that Billie Eilish was scheduled to start in 30 minutes — a seemingly late-in-the-evening start time for a judge with “an 8:30 calendar tomorrow.” The post also contained the hashtag: “VacateTheShitOuttaOutOfCustodyCases”
Special counsel Francis Flaherty alleges 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 is over a Facebook post featuring a picture of herself in a hot tub with two other attorneys — one man; and one woman. Both women wear bikini tops. The man is shirtless.
The two other attorneys in that photo happen to be public defenders. 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.”
Law&Crime reached out to the judge’s chambers for comments on this story but Ballou’s clerk of court declined to comment.
According to Las Vegas-based CBS affiliate KLAS, the judge has, at least in some sense, responded to the allegations against her.
This past weekend, in a Facebook post, Ballou reportedly quoted 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 post continues:
Get money, go hard, you’re m––––f––––– right
Never been a fraud in my m––––f––––– life
Get money, go hard, damn f––––– right
Stunting on these bitches out of m––––f––––– spite . . .Knock me down nine times but I get up 10
Ballous has been a lightning rod for controversy since being first elected in 2020. The judge previously earned the ire of Sin City police for comments she made skeptical of police officers’ ability to interact with Black people without resorting to fatal violence, KLAS reports.
“You’re the one making the decisions not to walk away from cops,” the judge reportedly once told a defendant in her courtroom. “You’re a Black man in America. You know you don’t want to be nowhere where cops are. 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.”
Judges in the United States often praise law enforcement. Ballou’s against-the-grain commentary prompted the Las Vegas Police Protective Association to call for her resignation and an ethics investigation. The charges, however, do not reference those police-related comments.
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