Robert Clive Jones (born July 21,1947) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. He served as the Chief United States District Judge from 2011 to 2014.
Jones was born in Las Vegas. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Brigham Young University where he majored in English,accounting and economics in 1971,becoming a CPA soon after graduation. Jones attended UCLA School of Law,where he was an editor of the UCLA Law Review ,receiving a Juris Doctor. [2] He served in the United States Army National Guard from 1971 to 1972,and then in the United States Air National Guard from 1972 to 1977.
In 1975,Jones was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. From 1976 to 1982,he was in private practice.
Jones was appointed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit as a bankruptcy judge from 1983–1999,serving as Chief Judge from 1984–1993. [3] He was also appointed to the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit from 1986–1999. For six years,he served on the national Judicial Conference Committee on codes of conduct,handling ethics issues for federal judges throughout the nation.
On June 9,2003,Jones was nominated by President George W. Bush to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Nevada vacated by David Warner Hagen. Jones was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on October 2,2003,and received commission on November 30,2003. He assumed senior status on February 1,2016. [3]
In August 2012, Jones held that Nevada's election law giving voters the ability to select "None of These Candidates" was unconstitutional. The following month, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit blocked the preliminary injunction issued by Jones, granting an emergency stay. [4] [5] One member of that panel, Judge Stephen Reinhardt, criticized Jones' handling of the case: "His dilatory tactics appear to serve no purpose other than to seek to prevent the state from taking an appeal of his decision before it prints the ballots.... Such arrogance and assumption of power by one individual is not acceptable in our judicial system." [6] The case was ultimately dismissed for lack of standing. [5]
In November 2012, in the case of Sevcik v. Sandoval , Jones ruled that Nevada's denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. [7] [8] Jones stated that,"a meaningful percentage of heterosexual persons would cease to value the civil institution as highly as they previously had and hence enter into it less frequently." He also wrote that adoption is "not an alternative means of creating children, but rather a social backstop for when traditional biological families fail." In October 2014, a unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed Jones's ruling and directed him to promptly enjoin the state of Nevada from "preventing otherwise qualified same-sex couples from marrying." [9] However, instead of issuing the order, Jones issued an order recusing himself the next day. [10]
In August 2013, Jones did not sign a letter to the leaders of the United States Congress urging them to avoid further sequestration related budget cuts. The letter explained that further cuts would have a "devastating and long-lasting impact" on federal courts. [11]
In September 2015, having cited case law that raised concerns about "exhibit[ing] personal bias," the Ninth Circuit identified Jones as having "well established and inappropriately strong" feelings against out-of-state attorneys and directed reassignment of one of his cases to a different judge in order "to maintain the appearance of justice." [12]
In January 2016, the Ninth Circuit reversed a decision by him in a case involving a claim for damages by the federal government against ranchers who grazed their cattle on federal property without a permit. [13] The Ninth Circuit stated that Judge Jones's rulings in the case were "plainly" and "clearly" contrary to law; [14] that he had "grossly abused the power of contempt"; [15] that he had "harbored animus" against federal agencies; [13] that his "bias" was a "matter of public record"; [13] and that he had engaged in "improper treatment of government officials" in a previous case. [16] The Ninth Circuit stated that it had "expressed concern about Judge Jones' conduct in several other recent cases." [17] In remanding the case to the district court for further proceedings, the panel ordered the assignment of the case to a different judge due to the appearance of bias created by Judge Jones' conduct during the case. [18]
In March 2016, the Ninth Circuit removed Jones from hearing a case between Burning Man and Pershing County, Nevada. In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit stated the judge had no legal basis to reject a settlement the parties had entered into and expressed concern about how Jones conducted the proceedings. [19] [20]
Jones is married to Michele Bunker and is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has served in several positions in the church including bishop. He was a missionary in Japan from 1966 to 1969. [2]
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 13 "Circuits". Eleven of the circuits are numbered "First" through "Eleventh" and cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals from the U.S. district courts within their borders. The District of Columbia Circuit covers only Washington, DC. The Federal Circuit hears appeals from federal courts across the United States in cases involving certain specialized areas of law. The courts of appeals also hear appeals from some administrative agency decisions and rulemaking, with by far the largest share of these cases heard by the D.C. Circuit. Appeals from decisions of the courts of appeals can be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In law, an en banc session is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court rather than by one judge or a smaller panel of judges. En banc review is used for unusually complex or important cases or when the court believes there is a particularly significant issue at stake.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts:
David Bryan Sentelle is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Mary Margaret McKeown is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit based in San Diego. McKeown has served on the Ninth Circuit since her confirmation in 1998.
Milan Dale Smith Jr. is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Smith's brother, Gordon H. Smith, was a Republican U.S. Senator from 1997 to 2009. Milan Smith is neither a Republican nor a Democrat.
Richard Randall Clifton is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Stephen Roy Reinhardt was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with chambers in Los Angeles, California. He was the last federal appeals court judge in active service to have been appointed to his position by President Jimmy Carter.
Diarmuid Fionntain O'Scannlain is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. His chambers are located in Portland, Oregon.
Atsushi Wallace Tashima is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He is the third Asian American and first Japanese American to be appointed to a United States Court of Appeals.
Melvin Theodore Brunetti was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. was a case in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington regarding the applicability of the first-sale doctrine to software sold under the terms of so-called "shrinkwrap licensing." The court held that when the transfer of software to the purchaser materially resembled a sale it was, in fact, a "sale with restrictions on use" giving rise to a right to resell the copy under the first-sale doctrine. As such, Autodesk could not pursue an action for copyright infringement against Vernor, who sought to resell used versions of its software on eBay. The decision was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which issued a decision on September 10, 2010, reversing the first-sale doctrine ruling and remanding for further proceedings on the misuse of copyright claim. The Ninth Circuit's decision asserted that its ruling was compelled by Ninth Circuit precedent, but observed that the policy considerations involved in the case might affect motion pictures and libraries as well as sales of used software.
Paul Jeffrey Watford is an American lawyer who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2012 to 2023. In February 2016, The New York Times identified Watford as a potential Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462 (2011), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a bankruptcy court, as a non-Article III court lacked constitutional authority under Article III of the United States Constitution to enter a final judgment on a state law counterclaim that is not resolved in the process of ruling on a creditor's proof of claim, even though Congress purported to grant such statutory authority under 28 U.S.C. § 157(b)2(C). The case drew an unusual amount of interest because the petitioner was the estate of former Playboy Playmate and celebrity Anna Nicole Smith. Smith died in 2007, before the Court decided the case, which her estate lost.
Sevcik v. Sandoval is the lead case that successfully challenged Nevada's denial of same-sex marriage as mandated by that state's constitution and statutory law. The plaintiffs' complaint was initially filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on April 10, 2012, on behalf of several couples denied marriage licenses. These couples challenged the denial on the basis of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection.
Sturgeon v. Frost refers to two cases heard by the Supreme Court of the United States, both of which deal with the regulatory authority of the National Park Service over lands in Alaska under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). In the first case, Sturgeon v. Frost I, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), the Court ruled that the National Park Service may regulate only "public" lands in Alaska and remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court to decide whether the river in question, which is "submerged land," is "public" or "non-public" land. In Sturgeon v. Frost II, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), the Court unanimously ruled that the ANILCA defines navigable waters in Alaska as "non-public" lands and that they are exempt from the National Park Service's national regulations.
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court vacated and remanded a ruling by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the basis that the Ninth Circuit had not properly determined whether the plaintiff has suffered an "injury-in-fact" when analyzing whether he had standing to bring his case in federal court. The Court did not discuss whether "the Ninth Circuit’s ultimate conclusion — that Robins adequately alleged an injury in fact — was correct."
Lightfoot v. Cendant Mortgage Corp., 580 U.S. ___ (2017), was a United States Supreme Court case that clarified whether Fannie Mae can be sued in state courts. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court held that plaintiffs may file lawsuits against Fannie Mae in any state or federal court that is "already endowed with subject-matter jurisdiction over the suit."
State of Washington and State of Minnesota v. Trump, 847 F.3d 1151, was a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of Executive Order 13769, issued by U.S. president Donald Trump.
Patrick Joseph Bumatay is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.