In our opinion, Steve Sanson is to Investigative Journalism as a Pencil is to a Modern Computer. They’re light years apart in terms of competency and capabilities. Steve Sanson posing as an investigative journalist is like former NFL middle linebacker Dick Butkus posing as a ballerina. You get the idea.

NFL linebacker Dick Butkus; not a ballerina

Sanson writes on his Veterans in Politics website about former Nevada District Court Judge Stefany Miley’s supposed conflict between being a judge in Nevada and at the same time being a bar member in the state of Texas. (See above graphic call-outs.)

Sanson references the Nevada judicial code in writing that:

“Nevada Code of Judicial Conduct, Rule 3.10 prohibits judges from practicing law. “Unless otherwise permitted by law, a judge shall not practice law,” [Rule 3.10]. This prohibition—‘a judge shall not practice law’—presumably applies to practicing law, not just in Nevada, but in any state.”

Then he writes,

“If it turns out that Stefany Miley practiced law in the Lone Star State, then presumably, she violated NCJC Rule 3.10.” He asks, “Issue: Was Judge Stefany Miley practicing law in Texas while sitting on the bench in Nevada?”

Very simple answer: No.

There’s nothing wrong, either legally or ethically, with being a member of the bar in multiple states. In fact, it’s quite common across the judicial landscape. Judge Miley was a member of the Nevada State Bar, and she sat on the bench in Nevada, and she obeyed the Nevada code by not practicing law in Texas. Big difference between being a current bar member in the state of Texas and actually practicing law there. She had no clients there; litigated no cases there. She simply was a member of the Texas State Bar.

Why? Why was (and is) she a member of the Texas State Bar in good standing?

She was born and raised in Austin. Texas. She has an undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University. Texas. Texas A&M is not too far from Austin. Here in Nevada as her career as a judge in Clark County was drawing to a close, she was going through a rough patch at the time with her then-husband, also an attorney whom she eventually divorced. Joining the Texas bar was a premeditated move. She knew eventually she would be leaving Las Vegas, leaving the bench, leaving her husband, and returning home to Texas to begin practicing law there. After she stepped away from her role as a Clark County Eighth Circuit Court judge. After her divorce from her husband.

Thing is, Mr. Sanson, you likely knew about all that being as tight as you are with Stefany Miley’s ex-husband. We’re taking a wild guess here — speculation on our part, so forgive us — that your primary source for the info you published on Veterans in Politics (perhaps the only source) was Stefany Miley’s ex-husband.

This all isn’t that hard to figure out. You’ve got to know your subject in order to write effectively about that subject. You know the old writer’s saying, right? That a writer can only write about what he or she knows.

God gave you a head. You might try using it every now and then. Comes in handy when you’re doing work where you actually have to think about stuff. Or did you just want to feel satisfied about trying to bring some influence to the Las Vegas area’s politics and elections scene regardless of who you walked over?