Judge Stefany Miley (Ret.)

It’s pretty clear that Steve Sanson has used his purported “charitable” 501(c)(3) organization — Veterans in Politics (“Internation”) — to go after former Las Vegas District Court Judge Stefany Miley. It’s not like she’s the only one they’ve gone after, but it’s apparent she certainly had a target on her.

Judge Miley was up for election in 2020 after having been elected previously on November 4, 2014 receiving 71.8 percent of the vote. Elected Nevada district judges serve 6-year terms. So she was up for election in 2020. She did not run for re-election.

On January 17, 2020, 10 months before that year’s Election Day, which was Tuesday, Nov. 3, Steve Sanson ran the following story on his Veterans in Politics website:

“Clark County District Court Judge
 ONLY worked 14 afternoons in 2018!”

January 17, 2020 is significant, because it was the deadline for Judge Miley to file for re-election.

In his article, Steve Sanson goes after Miley with a vengeance, implying that she was shirking her duty as a judge and mocking her over how little time she spent “on the bench.”

He wrote that, “Judge Miley was only on the bench for 149 of those days, leaving 112 days unaccounted.” And, “Judge Miley only worked 14 afternoons, she is hardly on the bench Thursdays and Fridays.”

We guess Sanson doesn’t know much about how judges operate. Actually a judge’s time on the bench in the context of their workweek is relatively minimal. The majority of a judge’s time is spent out of public view, reading case material from both the prosecution and defense; looking up case law and precedents that are germane to whatever cases they, themselves are in the middle of or that are referred to in the case filings and/or briefs related to the case in question; and making voluminous notes on all that. And then there’s reflecting on the merits of the case and writing up opinions to back up their decisions on the bench.

It’s a thankless task that most of the public (and apparently Sanson) doesn’t understand.

Even though judges don’t spend 8 to 10 to 12 hours a day sitting on the bench in court, they still spend countless hours behind the scenes preparing for when the actually appear in court.

We guess that’s lost on Sanson.