Judge Humke temporarily suspended pending charges for allegedly mishandling cases

Washoe County Family Court Judge David Humke was temporarily suspended after he was again accused of mishandling child support and custody cases within in his department.

Humke, who’s served on the bench for about three-and-a-half years, was suspended with pay last week pending formal charges from the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline.

Attempts at reaching Humke for comment were unsuccessful Thursday afternoon.

According to the order of suspension filed on Nov. 2, the commission found Humke lacked knowledge over family law, which affected his ability to handle cases in family court.

The commission also found he had court clerks, attorneys and other parties involved decide matters on certain cases.

Humke also allegedly set unnecessary status hearings and never entered final orders in some custody cases, prolonging those cases for years.

He recently served a three-month suspension without pay and was fined $1,000 in a separate but similar case. Earlier this year, the disciplinary commission found he had mismanaged his department, which had processed about one-tenth of the 700 cases processed by other departments.

They also found he had failed to discipline a former judicial assistant, who was accused of inappropriate behavior.

Humke had just returned from serving that suspension when the presiding judge of the Second Judicial District Court Family Division filed another complaint against him.

During his absence, Senior Judge Deborah Schumacher was ordered to oversee family court cases within Humke’s department. In that time, she found his department had issued incomplete or incorrect orders in several child custody and support cases.

She then told Judge Bridget Robb, who conducted a six-month audit of the minutes of all the hearings Humke presided over. She looked at the cases he handled before he was suspended in July.

She then checked the status of several of those cases and filed a complaint. At a public hearing last week, Robb testified Humke set status hearings without making decisions, forcing the people involved to return to court several times.

She testified many low-income parents were forced to take a full day off work to appear in court.

“Even when (Humke) makes decisions in cases, the evidence demonstrates that they are often legally incorrect,” the commission said in the court order.

Humke also allegedly held trials without ever notifying the parties involved, “depriving them of their opportunity to be heard,” the court order said.

Last month, Chief Judge Scott Freeman issued an administrative order, which reassigned a chunk of Humke’s caseloads, such as divorce and custody cases, to other family court judges.

Freeman also assigned Humke a mentor, who then gave him advice. But Humke never followed that advice when he returned to the bench in October after serving his previous suspension, the order said.

Robb said Humke didn’t educate himself on family laws. She also accused him of showing up unprepared at his hearings.

“These failures diminished the public’s respect for the Bench and are an embarrassment to me, and I believe, to my colleagues,” the order said Robb wrote in her complaint.

The disciplinary commission has 60 days to submit a formal statement of charges from the time the suspension order was filed.

Humke could face a wide range of consequences, from a public reprimand or a fine to the permanent removal from the bench.

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Judge Humke temporarily suspended pending charges for allegedly mishandling cases