THE QUICK ANSWEROn April 2, 2026, United States Circuit Judge Ryan D. Nelson of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is alleged to have engaged in an altercation in an Idaho Falls parking lot that ended with another motorist’s sunglasses thrown and then stomped on the asphalt. On April 22, 2026, the Idaho Falls City Prosecuting Attorney’s office filed two misdemeanor charges: battery and malicious injury to property. On May 13, Judge Nelson pleaded not guilty. On June 8, 2026, Chief Ninth Circuit Judge Mary H. Murguia opened a federal judicial-misconduct review; in early July, Chief Justice John Roberts transferred that review to the Fourth Circuit at her request, to avoid any appearance of bias within Nelson’s home court. The state criminal case and the federal disciplinary process are now running in parallel. |
Case File at a Glance
| Judge | United States Circuit Judge Ryan D. Nelson |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit |
| Chambers | Idaho Falls, Idaho |
| Appointed | 2018 |
| Charges | Misdemeanor battery; misdemeanor malicious injury to property |
| Charging Jurisdiction | Bonneville County, Idaho — Seventh Judicial District |
| Prosecuting Office | Idaho Falls City Attorney’s Office |
| Charges Filed | April 22, 2026 |
| Plea | Not Guilty (May 13, 2026) |
| Pretrial Conference | Continued (June 18, then July 16, 2026); case pending |
| Defense Counsel | Curtis Reed Smith |
| Federal Misconduct Review | Opened June 8, 2026 by Chief Judge Murguia; transferred to the Fourth Circuit (Complaint No. 26-90153) in July 2026 under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act |
WHY THIS CASE FILE READS DIFFERENTLYCase File 13 introduced the federal judicial-discipline system through an internal proceeding that ended in a private reprimand. This file introduces the same system through a different door: a criminal prosecution filed in ordinary state court, separate from but parallel to the federal misconduct review. The two tracks run on different rules, with different burdens of proof, and they can reach different answers about the same alleged conduct. Misdemeanor charges remain pending. Judge Nelson has pleaded not guilty and is entitled to the presumption of innocence in the criminal case. Allegation voice is used throughout this file. |
What Happened in the Parking Lot
The events giving rise to this case occurred on April 2, 2026, in a parking lot outside a private business on a commercial street in Idaho Falls. The factual description below is drawn from the affidavit of probable cause summarized in press reporting and from a video of the encounter obtained by the Idaho State Journal. As is the practice in this series, the other person involved is not named.
According to the affidavit, Judge Nelson is alleged to have parked his vehicle across the painted lines of multiple parking spaces. As he was exiting his vehicle, another motorist who had just parked nearby commented on the parking, telling Judge Nelson twice to “learn how to park.” The affidavit alleges that Judge Nelson then approached the other motorist, swiped his sunglasses from his face, and threw them across the parking lot. As the other motorist attempted to retrieve his sunglasses, Judge Nelson is alleged to have followed him and stomped on the sunglasses, crushing them. The affidavit also alleges that Judge Nelson, at one point during the encounter, challenged the other motorist to fight.
Judge Nelson later told the investigating officer from the Idaho Falls Police Department that he had knocked the sunglasses off the other motorist’s face, that he had stomped on the sunglasses, but that he “did not touch” the other motorist. The affidavit treats the contact with the sunglasses while they were on the motorist’s face as the predicate for the battery charge.
Through counsel, Judge Nelson has stated that he is “embarrassed by this incident,” that the conduct “is out of character and does not represent how he behaves,” and that he had “reached out and offered an apology and full compensation” for the damaged property. Judge Nelson’s defense counsel, Curtis Reed Smith, also stated that the judge “intends to continue to work through the proper process.”
The Charges and the Plea
On April 22, 2026, twenty days after the alleged incident, the Idaho Falls City Attorney’s Office filed two misdemeanor charges against Judge Nelson in the Seventh Judicial District of Idaho, sitting in Bonneville County. The charges are misdemeanor battery under Idaho Code § 18-903 (defining battery to include, in relevant part, an intentional, unlawful touching of another person without consent) and misdemeanor malicious injury to property under Idaho Code § 18-7001.
On May 13, 2026, Judge Nelson pleaded not guilty to both charges. The case is on the misdemeanor docket and has proceeded through a series of pretrial conferences under the ordinary Idaho misdemeanor rules: the June 18, 2026 setting was continued so the parties could discuss a possible resolution, a further conference was set for July 16, 2026, and the matter has remained pending. A no-contact order applies during the pendency of the case. Judge Nelson’s defense counsel of record is Curtis Reed Smith of Smith, Woolf, Anderson & Wilkinson.
A Sitting Federal Appellate Judge as a Misdemeanor Defendant
Judge Ryan D. Nelson was confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2018. He sits in chambers in Idaho Falls. Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Nelson served as Special Counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and, before that, as general counsel to a private Idaho-based company. The Ninth Circuit is the largest federal court of appeals in the country by geographic reach, with jurisdiction over the federal district courts of Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and the territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
A circuit judge is an Article III federal judge holding the same constitutional life tenure as a district judge, with the same constitutional protections against involuntary removal short of impeachment. The fact of the judgeship does not, however, alter the prosecutor’s authority to charge an Article III judge with a state misdemeanor, and it does not affect the judge’s entitlement to the ordinary procedural rights of a criminal defendant. In Idaho misdemeanor court, on the facts of this case, Judge Nelson is a defendant; the rules of evidence, the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the right to a jury trial all apply on the same terms they would to any other person facing the same charges.
That is, on its own, an unusual posture. Misdemeanor criminal prosecutions of sitting United States Circuit Judges are rare. Search the public docket of any circuit and you will find very few. The combination of the criminal posture and the parallel misconduct review described below is rarer still.
The Federal Misconduct Review
On Monday, June 8, 2026, Chief Judge Mary H. Murguia of the Ninth Circuit issued a public order initiating a judicial-misconduct review of Judge Nelson under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 (codified at 28 U.S.C. §§ 351–364). Chief Judge Murguia stated in that order that “all of the above information was only very recently received” by the courts, and that she was publicly disclosing the existence of the review as part of a commitment to maintaining public confidence in the federal judiciary’s ability to address misconduct internally.
The review did not stay in the Ninth Circuit. In early July 2026, at Chief Judge Murguia’s request, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts transferred the complaint (docketed as Judicial Conduct and Disability Complaint No. 26-90153) to the Judicial Council of the Fourth Circuit under Rule 26 of the Rules for Judicial-Conduct and Judicial-Disability Proceedings. Rule 26 exists for exactly this situation: a high-visibility complaint where keeping the matter inside the judge’s own circuit, among colleagues who work alongside him, could weaken public confidence in the result. The transfer hands the review to judges with no institutional relationship to Judge Nelson.
From here the mechanics track what readers of Case File 13 have seen, except they now play out in the Fourth Circuit rather than the Ninth. Fourth Circuit Chief Judge Albert Diaz conducts the initial review to decide whether the complaint warrants a full investigation, and Judge Nelson may be invited to respond in writing. If the matter is not dismissed at the threshold, the chief judge appoints a special committee to investigate; the committee reports its findings to the circuit’s judicial council, which issues a formal order that can in turn be reviewed by the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Available sanctions, short of recommending impeachment to Congress, include private reprimand, public reprimand, an order temporarily suspending case assignments, and a request that the judge voluntarily retire.
One practical consequence comes with the transfer: under 28 U.S.C. § 360, the proceedings from here forward are confidential, so the public record is likely to go quiet while the Fourth Circuit does its work. As of this writing, none of those decisions has been made, and the review is at its earliest procedural stage.
Why Both Processes Can Run at Once
There is no doctrine of double jeopardy between a state criminal prosecution and a federal judicial-misconduct review. The two proceedings address different injuries with different standards, and either can produce an outcome that does not bind the other.
In the Bonneville County misdemeanor case, the question is whether the State of Idaho has proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, the elements of battery and of malicious injury to property under the relevant Idaho statutes. The penalty range for a misdemeanor in Idaho is, in most cases, up to six months in jail per count, a fine, restitution, and the possibility of probation. The criminal case is on the misdemeanor docket; an outcome of acquittal, conviction, plea, or dismissal is the universe of possible resolutions.
In the federal judicial-misconduct review, the question is different. The JC&D Act does not borrow the criminal standard. It asks, in substance, whether the judge has engaged in “conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts” or other conduct that constitutes misconduct under the federal rules. That standard can be met by behavior that would not support a criminal conviction, and a criminal acquittal would not, by itself, foreclose a finding of misconduct. The reverse is also true: a criminal conviction, particularly for a misdemeanor, does not automatically translate to a misconduct finding, although in practice the two will tend to track each other on most fact patterns.
What the parallel structure means, for a reader watching this case unfold, is that there are two questions on the table, not one. The first is whether the State of Idaho can prove the criminal charges. The second is whether Judge Nelson’s conduct on April 2, 2026 (whatever it ultimately is found to have been) meets the federal standard for judicial misconduct. Either question can be answered yes, no, or both, in either order.
The Press and the Video
This case has drawn an unusual amount of national legal-press attention for a misdemeanor matter, in part because of the existence of a video of the incident. The Idaho State Journal obtained and published the video; legal blogs including Above the Law and Bloomberg Law have covered the case in detail. The other motorist involved has been identified by general description in some coverage but we follow our standing practice in this series and refers to him only in general terms here. He is an uncharged third party in a pending criminal case, and his identity is not necessary to the analysis the file is providing.
It is also worth saying clearly: the existence of a video of an incident is not the same thing as proof of the elements of a criminal charge. A jury or judge applying the criminal-evidentiary standard will assess the video, the affidavit, the testimony, the no-contact context, and the rest of the available evidence under the rules of evidence and the burden of proof. The press coverage is not the trial.
The Takeaway
There are two kinds of accountability operating in this case, and the relationship between them is the part of the matter most worth watching.
The first kind of accountability is the kind any of us would face if we behaved this way in a parking lot. A misdemeanor battery charge and a misdemeanor malicious-injury charge filed by a city prosecutor, followed by an arraignment and a plea and a pretrial conference. These are the ordinary criminal-procedure rails that anyone who damages property and is accused of unwanted physical contact gets put on. The fact that the defendant in this case is a sitting United States Circuit Judge does not move him off those rails. That is itself a form of accountability worth noticing.
The second kind of accountability is the one the federal judiciary applies to itself. The JC&D Act exists because Congress decided, in 1980, that the conduct of federal judges in office cannot be left to the impeachment process alone. The judicial-misconduct review opened on June 8 (and then deliberately moved out of Judge Nelson’s own circuit to the Fourth Circuit) is the federal judiciary saying, on its own initiative, that conduct alleged of a sitting judge will be examined, and examined by judges with no stake in protecting him, separately from and on a different timeline than the state criminal case.
Neither process is a substitute for the other. Both are open. As of the date of this file, Judge Nelson has pleaded not guilty, the misdemeanor case remains pending on the Idaho docket after a series of continued pretrial conferences, and the federal misconduct review is at its earliest stage in the Fourth Circuit. The Gavel of Shame series will follow this case as the records develop.
WHEN THE BENCH IS THE STORY, YOU NEED A LAWYER WHO READS THE RECORDEvery defendant is entitled to a courtroom where the judge’s conduct is held to the same standards expected of the parties. At Deandra Grant Law, we know how to ask the questions other lawyers don’t think to ask. If you are facing a DWI or criminal charge in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Rockwall, or McLennan County, put our experience to work for you. Call (214) 225-7117 • texasdwisite.com |
Sources
Lauren Berg, “9th Circ. Judge Faces Inquiry, Charges After Idaho Altercation,” Law360 (June 8, 2026). law360.com
“Ninth Circuit Judge accused of breaking man’s sunglasses in altercation outside Brio Home Health and Hospice,” LocalNews8 / KIFI (June 8, 2026). localnews8.com
“9th Circuit judge faces misdemeanor charges of battery and property damage,” ABA Journal (June 8, 2026). abajournal.com
“Ninth Circuit Judge Nelson Charged With Misdemeanor Battery,” Bloomberg Law (June 7, 2026). news.bloomberglaw.com
Carrie Johnson, “Three judges, three scandals and new scrutiny of judicial accountability,” NPR / Houston Public Media (June 9, 2026). houstonpublicmedia.org
Rett Nelson, “Chief Justice Roberts Transfers Complaint Against Idaho Falls Federal Judge to 4th Circuit,” EastIdahoNews.com (July 9, 2026). eastidahonews.com
“Judicial Conduct and Disability Complaint No. 26-90153,” U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (July 2026). ca9.uscourts.gov
“US Judge Nelson Hearing in Idaho Battery Case Continued to July,” Bloomberg Law (June 18, 2026). news.bloomberglaw.com
Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980, 28 U.S.C. §§ 351–364. law.cornell.edu
This post summarizes pending criminal misdemeanor charges and a publicly disclosed federal judicial-misconduct review. All factual descriptions of the underlying conduct are drawn from publicly filed charging documents, the affidavit of probable cause summarized in press reporting, and contemporaneous press accounts. Allegations remain allegations. The presumption of innocence applies. This is general commentary on a public record, not legal advice.
