The disarray of Clark County District Judge Erika Ballou’s career on the bench grew this past week when she was suspended by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline after refusing to comply with state Supreme Court orders in a criminal case.

That abbreviated description belies a strange legal drama in which mercy has once again butted heads with justice. Fallout from the case raises as many questions as answers, and reveals something about the justice system. Decide for yourself what that something is.

Mia Christman had been sex-trafficked for several years when, as an 18-year-old, she participated in a series of crimes in 2013 with a 34-year-old pimp named Michael Saunders. In 2017, she pleaded guilty to two felonies and received a 10-year sentence.

She appealed her conviction arguing ineffective assistance of counsel, and in 2021 new District Judge Ballou granted Christman’s petition and ordered her released on her own recognizance while the prosecution appealed the case to the Supreme Court. While out of custody, she became pregnant and later gave birth to a healthy baby.

By August 2022, the Supreme Court reversed Ballou’s ruling. Instead of following the high court’s order, the judge scheduled another evidentiary hearing to allow Christman the chance to submit additional evidence. That, not surprisingly, drew opposition in January 2023 from the Clark County district attorney’s office, and nine months later the Supreme Court ordered Ballou to enter the judgment and send Christman back to prison to finish her sentence. The judge refused to comply.

In an April 2024 interview with KLAS-TV, an emotional Christman said, “I did make my mistakes. I was also a victim. I was a kid.”

In May 2024, the case was reassigned to another judge, who promptly followed the high court’s order that returned Christman to state custody.

Those seeking their daily dose of irony need look no further than the fact Saunders was released from prison at the time Christman was struggling to win her freedom. His luck didn’t last: Saunders was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to four to 10 years in 2022.

The evidence as encapsulated in the commission’s ruling paints Ballou as more advocate than unbiased weigher of fact, but it also noted that the judge testified that “she was not biased but rather showed compassion in her rulings and in not wanting Christman’s baby to be placed in the custody of Child Protective Services if it were avoidable.”

In her hearing, Ballou told the commission, “I would hope it brings respect for the judicial system, that the judicial system has compassion for humans.”

Ballou was ably represented by longtime Las Vegas criminal defense attorney Tom Pitaro, who has seen an awful lot in his half century in the court system. He wasn’t the defense counsel in the criminal case, but I’ll wager this still is one of the stranger cases he’s ever experienced.

After all, the commission’s findings didn’t include the hard-to-measure question of whether Ballou was egregiously biased in the case. In the hearing, she told the commission that she attempted to rule in the best interests of the child. Commissioners didn’t excuse her legal errors, but unanimously agreed that she hadn’t shown “clear bias” in the case.

“While proof of Respondent’s repeated failure to follow the law was clear and convincing in this matter, evidence that her actions were driven by such a deep-seated favoritism or antagonism as to constitute impermissible bias was not,” the commission’s finding of facts states. “That said, while compassion may be a virtue to a judicial officer, it should never be used as a license or as an excuse to violate the law.”

This wasn’t the first time Ballou has courted controversy. Readers might recall the 15-year deputy public defender’s name from her well-publicized kerfuffle in 2016 with then-District Judge Douglas Herndon. He took exception to the “Black Lives Matter” pin she wore into his courtroom, a place purported to be “viewpoint-neutral.” After focusing his attention on the presence of the pin, the judge said, “Nobody should come in and think, ‘Gee, is the judge focusing on that?’” Ballou removed the pin after likening it to the arm bands and ribbons police officers wear in memory of fallen fellow officers. 

In 2020, Ballou was elected to district court. Herndon has since ascended to chief justice of the state Supreme Court, where his duties include serving as a commissioner on the Nevada Board of Pardons. In that capacity, Herndon hasn’t been shy in commenting about Ballou’s actions, at one point saying, “This is kind of turning our pardons process on its head. The walls are closing in on the district court that is shockingly refusing to do its job.”

Ballou’s controversies haven’t been limited to her dustup with the Supreme Court and discipline commission. The commissioners censured her last year for making what they deemed inappropriate social media posts. And just months ago, a deputy public defender filed an affidavit seeking to disqualify Ballou for showing a “deep-seated antagonism” and accusing the lawyer of having a sexual relationship with a client.

For defying the high court and opting for a more merciful if legally unsound approach, Ballou was officially suspended without pay for 18 months, with 12 months set aside. She will have to complete a remedial training program with the National Judicial College at her own expense before returning to the bench. She was also placed on two years’ probation.

With all that — and the professional embarrassment that goes with it — it could have been worse. She faced the potential of removal from office.

That means Ballou will receive a second chance, one that was denied the woman she was trying to help.

Make of that what you will.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader’s Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.