Bias charges against Carson City judge unfounded, attorney says

A Carson City woman's charges of bias against Justice of the Peace John Tatro are unfair and riddled with errors, said attorney Tom Beko.

Tatro presided over Tonya Brown's trial on charges she trespassed at the Carson City Courthouse. She was convicted and fined.

She filed a lawsuit against the city, saying her civil rights were violated, but lost.

Brown filed a complaint Monday with the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline accusing Tatro of being biased in his handling of her case. She said his testimony was so biased that U.S. District Judge Ed Reed refused to allow jurors in her federal civil-rights case to hear it.

Beko, who won the case against Brown for Carson City, said that claim is completely false.

"Judge Tatro's comments following Mrs. Brown's criminal trial were not excluded from the jury as Mrs. Brown apparently claims," Beko said.

Beko said Judge Reed allowed the entire transcript from Brown's trespass trial before Tatro to be admitted into evidence.

He said Brown's lawyers appealed the trespass conviction to Carson District Court - but never raised any allegation Tatro was biased.

"If they truly believe he was biased, they should have raised that as part of their appeal," he said.

According to the transcript of that trial, Tatro ruled her guilty, saying Brown's other testimony in the trial indicated she wasn't giving an accurate account of what happened during her arrest. He cited testimony that she was told up to 10 times to leave the area, called bailiffs names and ignored their orders to "settle down."

According to the record, another witness testified Brown was kicking and screaming, hanging onto the table in the entry area and forcefully resisting bailiff Roy Eddings.

Citing that, Tatro told her: "I believe the officers acted very appropriately. I don't believe a word you said. I believe some of it, you have some of the truth in there, but I believe that you lied right through your teeth, Ms. Brown, and that you're setting up a lawsuit here and I don't know who against, that you're setting one up and your testimony is contrived."

Beko said he read jurors that quote during the federal civil rights trial. He said that after reviewing all the evidence, the federal jury threw out all Brown's claims.

He said the allegations in Brown's complaint against Tatro are false and unfair to the judge.

Tatro said he could not comment on the allegations.

• Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.