Robert Clive Jones
| Robert Clive Jones | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office November 30, 2003 | |
| Appointed by | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | David W. Hagen |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1947 Las Vegas, Nevada |
| Alma mater | Brigham Young University (B.S.) UCLA School of Law (J.D.) |
Robert Clive Jones (born 1947) is Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.
Jones was born in Las Vegas. He graduated from Brigham Young University where he majored in English, accounting and economics in 1971. He then became a CPA. Jones attended UCLA Law School where he was an editor of the Law Review.[1]
From 1983-1999 Jones served as a bankruptcy judge. His wife is Michele Bunker.
Jones 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.[1]
Jones was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Nevada in December 2003 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.
In August 2012, Jones held that Nevada's election law giving voters the ability to select "None of the above" was unconstitutional. He was overruled by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on September 4. 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 print the ballots.... Such arrogance and assumption of power by one individual is not acceptable in our judicial system."[2]
On November 29, 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.[3] Jones stated (without evidence) that "a meaningful percentage" of heterosexuals would see the institution of marriage as polluted if the exclusion of same-sex couples ended. According to Jones, that heterosexuals dislike same-sex couples being afforded the right to marry justifies depriving same-sex couples of marriage rights: "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 was only used by failed families, stating that adoption is "not an alternative means of creating children, but rather a social backstop for when traditional biological families fail." Jones appeared unaware that the infertile marry, heterosexual couples reproduce outside of marriage, and same-sex couples (married and unmarried) have children when he wrote that marriage rights could be denied to same-sex couples because "[t]he perpetuation of the human race depends upon traditional procreation between men and women."[4]
In August, 2013, Jones was the only Chief Judge from each of the 50 states that 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.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cannon, Mark W. (November 6, 2004). "LDS federal judges raising the bar". Church News. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
- ↑ "Nevadans to keep "none of the above" ballot option". CBS News. September 5, 2012. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
- ↑ Geidner, Chris (November 29, 2012). "Federal Judge Rules Nevada Can Ban Same-Sex Couples From Marriage". BuzzFeed Politics. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
- ↑ Johnson, Chris (November 29, 2012). "Nev. federal court rules against same-sex marriage". Washington Blade. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
- ↑ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judges-urge-congress-to-avoid-more-sequestration-cuts/2013/08/15/64c4c30c-05f4-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html?wprss=rss_politics&wpisrc=nl_wonk_b
External links
- Robert Clive Jones at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.