Case Explained: Las Vegas Judge Erika Ballou to remain suspended until term ends – Legal Perspective

A controversial Las Vegas judge will remain off the bench until the end of her term, the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline said Wednesday.

In the meantime, District Judge Erika Ballou appears to have found a new job.

She was suspended from the bench without pay for six months in September.

The punishment stemmed from a case in which she was accused of defying the Nevada Supreme Court by releasing a prisoner and not ordering the prisoner to be taken back into custody when the high court reversed her decision on appeal.

Ballou could have returned to the bench had she completed a remedial training program, but she did not start or finish the program, the commission said in an emailed statement.

“Accordingly, pursuant to the Order, Judge Ballou shall remain suspended without pay until the completion of her current judicial term,” said the disciplinary body.

On Sept. 23, the day her suspension took effect, the State Bar of California website shows she reactivated her law license.

The site now lists her professional address as the Martinez & Dietrich Legal Group in Edinburgh, Texas. The firm serves as in-house counsel for Loya Insurance Group, a car insurance carrier, according to a prior Linkedin post.

The California bar website provides a Loya email address for Ballou.

She did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. Neither did leaders at the firm.

Ballou would have been up for reelection this year, but she did not file to run in January, which meant that prosecutor Colleen Brown, the only candidate to file for her Department 24 Clark County District Court seat, essentially won by default.

Ballou was elected in 2020. In the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s 2025 Judicial Performance Evaluation, she received a 32.8 percent retention score, the lowest of all 101 judges included in the survey.

That score meant only about a third of the 244 attorneys who rated her thought she should remain on the bench.

The judge was previously censured over social media posts and comments she made at a sentencing: “You’re a Black man in America, you know you don’t want to be around where cops are,” and, “I know I don’t, and I’m a middle-aged, middle-class Black woman. I don’t want to be around where cops are, because I don’t know if I’m going to walk away alive or not.”

In May, Chief District Judge Jerry Wiese removed Ballou from all criminal cases, days after a public defender said the judge should be disqualified from the public defender’s cases, in part for baselessly claiming the attorney was having a sexual relationship with a client.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson previously had attempted to have Ballou removed from all of his office’s cases.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.