Case Description
The Lieutenant Governor of Nevada was indicted on two counts of misappropriation and falsification of accounts arising from his actions when he was state treasurer. He moved to disqualify the Attorney General’s office from representing the state because several Assistant Attorneys General advised the Treasurer’s office about the program and about contracts that are the basis for the indictment. The attorneys prosecuting the case against the defendant had never advised the Treasurer’s office, and the Attorney General had erected a “Chinese Wall” between the prosecuting attorneys and those involved in an earlier civil investigation of the office. Defendant did not base the disqualification motion on attorney-client privilege concerns. Instead, he argued that this is an “extreme case” where disqualification is necessary because of the appearance of unfairness and impropriety in the circumstances here presented. The court noted that the Attorney General should not be automatically precluded from prosecuting state officials in this type of case, but held that the circumstances here warranted disqualification. Among other things, the court noted that prosecutors from the Attorney General’s office would be cross-examining their current and former colleagues, that the office itself had recognized a potential conflict by erecting a Chinese Wall between the prosecuting attorneys and those working on the civil investigation, Although it granted the motion, the court specifically found that there had been no impropriety or partiality in the investigation that led to the indictments.