A Las Vegas judge is facing ethics violations for her social media posts, especially one where she posed with public defenders in a hot tub.
The judge has replied to her potential discipline with Cardi B lyrics.
“Get money, go hard, you’re [expletive] right.”
According to Yahoo, the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline filed a formal complaint against Judge Erika Ballou last week.
Ballou faces two charges around her posts, one posing with two people from the Clark County Public Defender’s office and the other stating that defendants not in custody should be tossed out.
In the formal statement, the commission referred to the Las Vegas judge’s Instagram post–from September 19, 2021.
Her caption reads:
“Life is still beautiful, despite the fact that Billie Eilish doesn’t start for 30 minutes and I have an 8:30 calendar tomorrow… #Vacatethe[Explitive]OuttaOutofCustodyCases #WhereInTheWorldisCarmenSanDiego”
The Las Vegas Judge Has No Regrets
The Las Vegas judge didn’t comment on the investigation.
Instead, she took to Facebook over the weekend, quoting Cardi B’s “Get Up 10.”
“Went from makin’ tuna sandwiches to makin’ the news. I started speakin’ my mind and tripled my views… Get money, go hard, you’re [expletive] right. Never been a fraud in my [expletive] life. Get money, go hard, damn [expletive] right. Stunt on these [expletive] out of [expletive] spite.”
The commission alleged in their filing that the Las Vegas judge violated three necessary rules for a judge:
- To inspire public confidence and avoid impropriety–or its appearance
- To put her office’s duties before her personal and extrajudicial activities
- To show she can remain impartial
The charges also referred to an April 2022 Facebook post.
“Judge Ballou posted a photograph of her Facebook page of herself in a hot tub with two public defenders, Shana Brouwers and Robson Hauser, with the caption, ‘Robson is surrounded by great t***.’”
The Las Vegas judge was sworn in on January 2021 and has faced criticism before.
In July 2022, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, representing Metro cops, wanted Ballou to resign after her comments against the police.
“You’re the one making the decisions not to walk away from cops. You’re a Black man in America. You know you don’t want to be nowhere where cops are. You know you don’t want to be nowhere where cops are ’cause I know I don’t, and I’m a middle-aged, middle-class Black woman. I don’t want to be around where the cops are because I don’t know if I’m going to walk away alive or not.”
The Clark County DA’s Office wanted to revoke the probation of the defendant the Las Vegas judge was addressing.
Before being a judge, Ballour was a social justice organizer and a public defender.
In 2016, she made national headlines for refusing to remove her Black Lives Matter pin despite a judge ordering her to.