ALL EYES ARE ON LAS VEGAS EIGHTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT CHIEF JUDGE TIERRA JONES

Will Nevada’s New Chief Judge OBEY the Constitution and LIVE UP TO Her Own Publicly Proclaimed Principles, or Facilitate a Third Round of the Same Judicial Due-Process Failure?

By Austin Sachs

There are moments when a public servant gets to choose whether her public promises were principles or merely words.

For Las Vegas Eighth Judicial District Court Chief Judge Tierra Jones, that moment has arrived.

The question now confronting Chief Judge Tierra Jones is whether she is going to perform her lawful duty to ensure that rogue Judge Jessica K. Peterson recuses herself from my newly filed motion to withdraw my coerced guilty plea. Peterson herself is one of the two individuals at the center of the nonstop coercion I allege was used in the frame-up against my wife and me and ultimately forced me to surrender the jury trial I had demanded for years.

The other is Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dena Rinetti, the prosecutor fighting to preserve the State’s false child-abuse case. Together, they are the two Nevada court actors at the center of the Rinetti-instigated, Peterson-complicit coercive campaign now squarely before the court. Peterson therefore is not some detached judicial officer being asked to review another person’s conduct. She is being asked to adjudicate allegations directly challenging her own conduct, her own rulings, her own participation in that escalating coercive sequence, and ultimately her own role in producing the guilty plea I am asking the court to set aside.

I do not use the term “rogue judge” casually.

I use it because Peterson has accumulated an extraordinarily extensive and thoroughly documented record of conduct that my wife and I contend violated our rights under the United States and Nevada Constitutions, disregarded Nevada statutes and, at times, demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of what Nevada criminal statutes actually require. My sworn filings further document what I contend are repeated violations of the Nevada Code of Judicial Conduct and its Canons, the Nevada Rules of Criminal Practice, and the obligations imposed by Peterson’s oath of office.

These are not accusations invented for this article. They have been placed into the judicial record through detailed filings made under penalty of perjury.

And speaking of perjury, the record contains what I contend is an extraordinarily serious instance in which Peterson herself made materially false statements under oath concerning the very no-contact history now central to my coercion claim. I address that documentary comparison later in this article.

The problem has not been confined to rulings and procedural violations.

Peterson’s hostility toward me has repeatedly been outrageous and wholly incompatible with the temperament I believe litigants are entitled to expect from a judge.  When I have challenged her actions by citing Nevada statutes, court rules and constitutional protections, I contend she has repeatedly responded not with the dignity, patience and courtesy expected of a judicial officer, but with visible anger, hostility and, at times, a loud, crude and disrespectful manner.

My wife and I have filed several detailed complaints concerning Peterson with the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline. From our perspective, those complaints have produced no meaningful accountability. After repeatedly documenting conduct we believe warrants serious scrutiny and watching the disciplinary process produce no corrective action, I have lost confidence that the existing institutional system is capable of policing this conduct without outside scrutiny.

Whatever explains that failure, the practical result has been the same: the conduct continues, the complaints go nowhere, and the litigants whose constitutional rights are at stake are left to endure it.

That is why I believe calling Peterson a rogue judge is justified by the record I have built.

And that is why I am not willing to assume that Peterson will suddenly police herself now.

I genuinely believe that if I did not publicly document what is happening, publish this article, and place it before Chief Judge Jones through a formal Notice so that there can be no question about what Jones knew and when she knew it, Peterson would attempt to retain control of my plea-withdrawal proceeding, adjudicate allegations concerning her own conduct, reject those allegations, and once again force me to spend enormous time and resources attempting to undo the resulting constitutional violation after the damage had already been done.

After more than seven years of this case, I am no longer willing to tolerate that cycle.

Tierra Jones became Chief Judge effective July 1, 2026. Barely two weeks later, this case presented her with an early test of the principles she had publicly proclaimed.

Twice this summer, I formally placed the issue before Chief Judge Jones through court filings. First, I filed a motion asking that Peterson be disqualified before she could adjudicate my forthcoming motion to withdraw the guilty plea that I contend Peterson herself helped coerce. After Jones denied that motion, I filed a motion for reconsideration squarely presenting the issue again.

Twice, Jones refused.

In her first written denial order, Jones relied upon the fact that the criminal case had already been closed and that there was no matter pending before Peterson.

That created an obvious Catch-22.

I was trying to prevent Peterson from deciding a motion challenging Peterson’s own conduct, yet Jones’s reasoning effectively required me to file that very motion before Peterson before Jones would consider whether Peterson could constitutionally hear it.

After I moved for reconsideration and specifically identified NRS 176.165, the Nevada statute permitting post-sentence withdrawal of a guilty plea to correct manifest injustice, together with the Fourteenth Amendment and the constitutional right to an impartial tribunal, Jones issued a second written denial order.

This time she acknowledged that Nevada law permits a defendant to seek post-conviction withdrawal of a plea to correct manifest injustice.

But she still refused to secure a neutral judge.

Her August 10 order supplied the reason: I had not yet filed the NRS 176.165 motion.

That excuse no longer exists.

At 9:11 a.m. PDT on September 11, 2026, I filed the motion.

The substantive motion is 139 pages long. It is supported by 41 numbered exhibits comprising 82 separately identifiable documents and 1,748 pages of evidence. Together with the 43-page Certificate of Service and CC email list, the complete filing totals 1,930 pages.

That record is not enormous for the sake of being enormous.

After more than seven years of fighting this prosecution, I want this case over. I want the fair jury trial and acquittal I have sought from the beginning. I made the record this comprehensive for a reason: no prosecutor, judge or reviewing court should ever be able to claim that the relevant evidence was not placed squarely before them.

It was.

They have it.

There are no excuses.

The filing is titled:

MOTION TO SET ASIDE JUDGMENT OF CONVICTION AND WITHDRAW COERCED AND CONSTITUTIONALLY INVOLUNTARY GUILTY PLEA PURSUANT TO NRS 176.165, NRS 34.724(3), AND THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT TO CORRECT MANIFEST INJUSTICE.

The proceeding Jones previously said did not exist now exists.

The question is what Tierra Jones is going to do about it.

A CRIMINAL FRAME-UP THAT BEGAN WITH A PREVENTABLE MEDICAL INJURY WE HAD REPEATEDLY TRIED TO PREVENT

For readers encountering this case for the first time, the background can be stated briefly.

This prosecution began in 2019 after my medically fragile stepson, Yichen “Eason” Liu, suffered a serious medical decline following treatment at University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Las Vegas.

My wife, Yuxia Zhang, and I have consistently maintained that Eason’s injuries resulted from medical causes, including exposure to the gadolinium-based MRI contrast agent Gadavist, and were wrongly transformed into allegations of parental abuse or neglect.

Critically, the hospital’s own records document no fewer than four separate entries in which I objected to the use of contrast if an MRI was performed because I already believed gadolinium-based contrast agents were unsafe and did not want Eason exposed to them.

Yet on the morning of January 26, 2019, when I was not present at the hospital, Dr. Rodriguez-Solares obtained my wife’s agreement to the use of gadolinium-based contrast despite the fact that English was not her first language. Mandarin was. My position is that my wife was duped into giving that agreement under circumstances made substantially more troubling by that significant language barrier. Gadavist was then administered, resulting in what I contend was the very medical injury we had repeatedly tried to prevent and that was later transformed into the foundation for a criminal prosecution against us.

Years later, the defense obtained the opinion of internationally recognized gadolinium expert Dr. Richard C. Semelka.

His January 13, 2025 expert report stated:

“My opinion is Eason did experience Gadolinium Deposition Disease secondary to the MRI, which thus worsened his overall condition.”

The gadolinium defense was not invented in 2025.

Detective Christopher Slack’s own March 19, 2019 affidavit documented what I was saying before I was ever arrested:

“Austin said, Eason was brain damaged due to the dyes used during the MRI/brain scan.”

I have maintained the medical-causation defense from the beginning.

When Dr. Semelka finally testified on September 5, 2025, Peterson admitted his testimony and expressly recognized that it could create reasonable doubt and “potentially change the tenor of the trial and the ultimate result.”

The jury trial was only eleven days away.

What happened next is the heart of my coercion claim and precisely why Chief Judge Jones must intervene to ensure that my motion to withdraw the coerced guilty plea is placed before a genuinely neutral judge who has never been involved in this case.

THE FOURTEEN MAJOR COERCION EVENTS THAT LED TO MY DECEMBER 3, 2025 PLEA

This chronology is not all-encompassing. My filed motion contains far more evidence, proceedings, communications and legal issues than can reasonably be reproduced in one article.

But these fourteen events give the reader a clear picture of how the Rinetti-instigated, Peterson-complicit coercion escalated between September 5 and December 3, 2025.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 1: SEPTEMBER 5, 2025, THE EVIDENTIARY VICTORY AND IMMEDIATE TRIAL STOPPAGE

On September 5, Peterson ruled that Dr. Semelka could testify before the jury and recognized that his evidence could create reasonable doubt and potentially alter the result of the trial.

Again, the jury trial was eleven days away.

Rinetti immediately sought to stop it so the State could supposedly pursue extraordinary review.

Peterson granted the stay.

My appointed attorney, Charles Goodwin, affirmatively told Peterson he had no objection.

Yet from September 5 through my December 3 plea, the State never filed the threatened writ challenging the Semelka ruling.

The trial stopped anyway.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 2: SEPTEMBER 6, 2025, RINETTI TRIGGERS A PRIORITY ONE ARKANSAS CPS FALSE-REPORT INTERVENTION

The very next day, Rinetti personally contacted Arkansas child-protection authorities from Nevada.

Arkansas treated the resulting report as a Priority One child-maltreatment referral, producing an emergency CPS and law-enforcement response at our home.

Arkansas DHS investigator Kimberly Tinkle later memorialized the allegations in a sworn affidavit.

Among the information attributed to Rinetti were assertions that an operative Nevada protective order existed against us, that Eason had lost approximately six pounds in nine days because we failed to provide treatment, an alleged forty-minute seizure, medical-neglect allegations, and an alleged threat by me to barricade my family inside our home if authorities attempted to remove Eason.

My motion alleges that materially significant portions of this account were false, misleading, unsupported or contradicted by evidence already available to Rinetti, and asks the court to determine whether she knowingly supplied materially false information.

Most glaringly, the supposedly existing operative written protection order did not exist.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 3: SEPTEMBER 8, 2025, THE AMBUSH HEARING AND NO-BAIL WARRANTS BASED UPON A NONEXISTENT OPERATIVE WRITTEN ORDER

Two days later came the September 8 ambush.

What was scheduled as a calendar call became a warrant proceeding without advance written notice that Rinetti intended to seek our arrest.

Rinetti orally requested no-bail warrants against both my wife and me for supposedly violating a no-contact restriction.

The operative written order supposedly violated was not attached to a motion.

It was not identified at the outset.

It was not produced.

Both appointed defense attorneys stated that they could not locate one.

Rinetti ultimately relied upon a six-year-old indictment summons containing a handwritten “no contact” notation.

A summons is not a separate written no-contact order.

Peterson nevertheless issued the no-bail warrants.

Within minutes, my wife and I went from defendants awaiting trial to people exposed to immediate arrest, incarceration and interstate surrender, while living in Arkansas and caring for a medically fragile child who was simultaneously the subject of the CPS intervention Rinetti had triggered two days earlier.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 4: SEPTEMBER 9, 2025, WE ARE FORCED TO SEND EASON TO CHINA TO KEEP HIM OUT OF THE RINETTI-INSTIGATED EMERGENCY

By the morning of September 9, Arkansas CPS intervention was underway and Peterson’s no-bail warrants threatened the simultaneous arrest of both parents.

My wife and I were forced into an intolerable decision.

Keep our medically vulnerable son with us while both parents faced arrest and Arkansas CPS intervention, or get him safely away from the immediate Rinetti-created danger.

We put Eason on a direct flight to Shanghai to stay with his biological father.

Yes, we made that decision as his parents.

But the Rinetti-instigated, Peterson-complicit pressure forced us into that decision because the alternative was to risk both parents being arrested while Arkansas CPS placed Eason into foster care.

We were separated from our son.

We incurred thousands of dollars in resulting expenses and financial losses.

And no jury had found either one of us guilty of anything.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 5: SEPTEMBER 17, 2025, I PUT THE CONTROLLING LAW IN FRONT OF PETERSON TO QUASH THE ILLEGAL WARRANTS

At the September 17 hearing to quash the warrants, the no-contact problem could no longer be hidden.

Goodwin again acknowledged that he could locate no operative written order.

I personally forced NRS 178.4845 into the proceeding through the court’s chat function after supplying the statute to counsel.  Both my wife and I sent separate emails to counsel alerting them prior to the hearing to mention this statute to the judge.  Neither one did.  That is in my mind prima facie evidence of sabotage.

Peterson then acknowledged that “likely what should have probably transpired” was entry of an extending order if the restriction was intended to continue beyond the statutory period.

Most revealingly, Peterson said that if an “actual order” was needed, she would have Rinetti submit one for Peterson’s signature so everything could be made clear and “button[ed] up.”

That statement was extraordinary.

My wife and I had already spent nine days exposed to no-bail arrest for allegedly violating an existing no-contact restriction.

Yet now Peterson was discussing having Rinetti create the “actual order.”

An operative written order cannot simultaneously have existed as the predicate for September 8 no-bail warrants and still need to be created on September 17.

Instead of ending the intrusion into our constitutionally protected parental relationship after that defect was exposed, Peterson asked the State to provide a new written no-contact order.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 6: SEPTEMBER 18, 2025, PETERSON CREATES A NEW SEALED NO-CONTACT ORDER AFTER THE WARRANTS HAD ALREADY ISSUED

The very next day, September 18, Peterson entered a new written no-contact order under seal.

Its chronology alone destroys any suggestion that it supplied the missing predicate for the September 8 warrants.

An order created on September 18 cannot retroactively become the written order supposedly violated on September 8.

My motion further contends that Peterson entered the new restraint without complying with NRS 178.4845, NRS 178.4851, and the constitutional requirements of adequate notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

Neither parent was provided a copy while the order was being used to restrict our liberty and our relationship with our own child.

The order was sealed.

We were therefore being governed by a newly created judicial restraint concerning our own son while being denied a copy of the very instrument being used against us.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 7: SEPTEMBER 26, 2025, THE WARRANT DEBACLE PRODUCES A THREE-HOUR ARKANSAS DETENTION

Quashing the September 8 warrants did not eliminate their consequences.

On September 26, my wife and I were stopped and detained by Arkansas law enforcement for approximately three hours because Arkansas systems reportedly continued to show the Nevada warrants as active.

Think about what that meant in real life.

We had already endured the Arkansas Priority One CPS false-report intervention thanks to the “chronic liar” Rinetti.  Yes, all the way back in February 2025, I truthfully outed Rinetti as being a “chronic liar” in my Counter-Affidavit after she filed her inexcusable motion to continue the February 18, 2025 trial.  She claimed she needed more time to line up a rebuttal witness to Dr. Semelka.  The issue of gadolinium injury was already in the record dating back to early 2020 when my wife and I submitted our Joint Declaration to the court via my paid attorney at the time. By September, what had begun as a prosecution built around that long-disclosed medical issue had escalated into direct government interference with our family.

We had been forced to send Eason to China.

We had spent days exposed to no-bail arrest over an operative written order that could not be produced.

The warrants were finally quashed.

And yet we were still physically detained in Arkansas because the Nevada warrant process continued following us across state lines.

During this same period we were also dealing with Arkansas CPS and Kimberly Tinkle’s investigation.

The stress, fear and disruption were enormous.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 8: NOVEMBER 12, 2025, THE NEVADA NO-CONTACT RINETTI-INSTIGATED INTERFERENCE REACHES EASON’S HOSPITAL ROOM

Eason later returned to the United States for medical care that had been scheduled in advance. The reader may reasonably wonder why, knowing that Peterson’s sealed no-contact order remained in place, we took the risk of bringing Eason back to Arkansas. The answer is simple. We believed Peterson’s no-contact order was unlawful from the moment it was entered. As responsible parents, we determined that our son’s actual and medically necessary care had to take precedence over compliance with what we regarded as an unlawful order entered by a rogue judge. I contend Peterson’s documented conduct warranted her removal from the bench long before this medical emergency ever occurred.

And by that point, Peterson already had substantial evidence directly contradicting the premise that my wife or I posed any danger to Eason. We had provided the court with letters from three of Eason’s treating physicians and two Christian academies he attended in Arkansas. These were people and institutions with direct exposure to Eason and, where applicable, mandatory-reporting responsibilities, yet none reported abuse or neglect by us. To the contrary, their evidence supported what we had maintained all along: there was no abuse or neglect. I contend the allegations suggesting otherwise originated with Rinetti and were false. There was therefore no lawful factual basis for Peterson to impose the September 18 sealed no-contact order, much less continue enforcing it after this evidence was before her. Yet at the October 20 hearing, Peterson denied our efforts to dissolve that unlawful restraint and kept it in place. That history is critical to understanding why, when Eason needed actual medical care in November, we refused to place what we regarded as Peterson’s unlawful order above our son’s health and medical needs.

On November 12, I brought him to Arkansas Children’s Hospital for a medically necessary 24-hour video EEG, or VEEG, related to his neurological condition and recurring seizures.

According to my contemporaneous sworn declaration, Dr. Thanh Dai told me that the hospital’s legal department had placed a “medical hold” on Eason because of the Nevada “no contact order.”

Hospital security then removed me from my stepson’s room.

I was not voluntarily leaving my child.

I was being removed under the authority being asserted against me.

Arkansas CPS became involved.

Eason was ultimately taken from his parents.

The Rinetti-instigated, Peterson-complicit Nevada restraint had crossed state lines and reached directly into the hospital room of our medically vulnerable child without any real lawful authority.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 9: LATE NOVEMBER 12, 2025, I FOLLOW ATTORNEY MICHAEL SANFT’S ADVICE AND PLEAD WITH PETERSON FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF. SHE PROVIDES NONE.

After I exercised my right to represent myself, attorney Michael Sanft had been appointed as my standby counsel.

Sanft recommended that I seek an emergency conference with Peterson.

So I did.

At approximately 11:06 p.m. Las Vegas time on November 12, while the emergency was unfolding, I emailed Peterson’s judicial executive assistant and law clerk, expressly asked that the request be forwarded to Peterson, requested an emergency conference, copied Rinetti and the relevant attorneys and Arkansas participants so there could be no legitimate ex parte concern, supplied telephone numbers, identified the constitutional and statutory problems, and explained that Peterson’s September 18 order was CATASTROPHICALLY INTERFERING with our parental rights and Eason’s medical care.

I asked for immediate relief so my wife and I could “resume our lawful duty to take care of our son without further ado.”

No effective emergency relief followed.

That episode changed something fundamental for me.

I had used the legal process.

I had followed standby counsel’s recommendation.

I had put the emergency in writing.

I had explained that a judicial order was interfering with the parental care of a neurologically impaired child.

And nothing meaningful happened.

From my perspective, ignoring that plea while the emergency continued demonstrated an appalling indifference to the human consequences of Peterson’s own order.

It is also why I find Peterson’s polished public appearances so difficult to stomach. Anyone can sound measured, pleasant and compassionate in a public interview. What matters to me is how a judge acts when an actual litigant is desperately invoking the law and begging for protection of his family.

What I experienced was radically different.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 10: NOVEMBER 13, 2025, RINETTI RESPONDS TO THE FAMILY CRISIS BY SEEKING REMAND

The next day, while Eason remained separated from his parents and my emergency request had produced no effective corrective hearing, Rinetti filed procedurally unlawful remand motions targeting my wife and me.

The escalation could hardly have been clearer.

The Rinetti-instigated, Peterson-complicit no-contact machinery had reached Eason’s hospital room.

My effort to obtain immediate judicial relief had failed.

And Rinetti’s response was to pursue another mechanism threatening parental liberty.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 11: NOVEMBER 24, 2025, THE REMAND HEARING EXPOSES THE COLLAPSE OF MY WIFE’S LEGAL PROTECTION

By November 24, the coercive focus had moved directly onto my wife’s liberty. Because of Rinetti’s remand motions, I had filed a motion to disqualify Peterson in an effort to stop those procedurally unlawful proceedings. My wife’s appointed attorney, Travis Shetler, had already filed an October 27 Renewed Omnibus Joinder expressly adopting my pending and future motions. In plain English, that meant my disqualification motion was supposed to protect my wife just as though she had filed it herself.

Yet at the November 24 hearing, Peterson announced:

“There was no joinder that was done in Ms Zhang’s case.”

That statement was directly contrary to Shetler’s own filing on the docket.

And Shetler, the lawyer who had personally filed the October 27 Renewed Omnibus Joinder, did not correct Peterson, defend his filing, or insist that his own joinder be given effect.

Instead, when Peterson asked whether she could proceed despite my pending disqualification challenge, Shetler told her:

“I don’t believe there’s any problem with you proceeding today your honor.”

And:

“There’s no reason we cannot proceed.”

Shetler had also filed no written opposition to Rinetti’s remand motion.

Then my wife twice said:

“I need a new attorney.”

Peterson twice responded:

“You are not getting a new attorney.”

No meaningful inquiry into the breakdown between my wife and her appointed lawyer preceded continuation of a proceeding threatening her liberty.

Peterson announced that she was going to remand my wife but would permit her to surrender herself later.

A bench warrant was threatened if she did not appear.

At the moment my wife most desperately needed a functioning adversarial advocate, her appointed lawyer supplied no meaningful barrier to incarceration.  Instead, he willfully and wantonly sabotaged her defense.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 12: DECEMBER 1, 2025, THE LAST APPARENT LEGAL ESCAPE ROUTES COLLAPSE

I was still resisting.

Only forty-eight hours before my plea, I filed a written opposition to Rinetti’s remand effort and again challenged the no-contact predicate, jurisdiction and prosecutorial misconduct.

Attorney Michael Horvath appeared for my wife after emergency efforts to obtain replacement counsel and asked for time to review the matter.

Peterson granted the State’s remand motion, and illegally struck my wife’s November 27 and November 28 pro se efforts seeking emergency protection and replacement counsel, and told incoming counsel:

“It is not going to change my decision on the granting of the motion to remand.”

The surrender threat remained active.

I had not suddenly decided I was guilty.

I had not abandoned Dr. Semelka.

I had not decided that a trial I had demanded for years was undesirable.

I was watching the remaining mechanisms for protecting my wife fail in real time.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 13: DECEMBER 2, 2025, WE LEARN THAT EASON WANTED SOMEONE TO KILL HIM

Then came December 2.

During Eason’s second foster placement, he told the adult male in that foster family that he wanted the man to kill him.

Eason was thereafter taken to Rivendell Behavioral Health Services.

Before my plea, my wife and I learned together from Rivendell personnel what our son had said.

We were horrified. My blood was also boiling with PROFOUND ANGER at Rinetti and Peterson for the outrageous lawlessness that I contend had intentionally brought this DISASTER upon our family. But at the same time, I had to confront what mattered more than my anger, more than my case, and ultimately more than protecting myself: the safety of my wife and Eason.

The child we had sent to China in September specifically to keep him away from the Rinetti-instigated, Peterson-complicit danger of foster placement had returned for scheduled medical care, been separated from us, placed into foster care, and deteriorated until he was asking another person to kill him.

At the same time, his biological mother faced incarceration in Nevada.

That was the reality confronting me on December 2.

MAJOR COERCION EVENT 14: DECEMBER 3, 2025, THE COERCED PACKAGE PLEA

There is one fact that makes the effect of this escalation especially clear.

Earlier, when my wife and I had been made fugitives by the September no-bail warrants, Goodwin offered essentially the same bargain I was later coerced into: I plead guilty and my wife’s charges go away.

I refused it.

I still believed the warrants could be defeated and that I could continue to the jury trial I had demanded for years.

The warrants were eventually quashed.

By December 3, the bargain itself had not materially improved.

My circumstances had been transformed.

My wife now faced incarceration.

Eason remained separated from us after deteriorating to the point of a suicidal psychiatric crisis in foster care.

My emergency judicial efforts had failed. Not because my filings lacked cited legal authority. Not because they were incoherent. They failed because Chief Judge Jerry Wiese did NOTHING to stop what was happening, while Peterson proved herself, in my view, to be a nonstop lawless rogue judge seemingly hell-bent on facilitating virtually every dirty deed Rinetti put in front of her.

The disqualification route had not produced timely protection.

My wife’s appointed representation had collapsed when she needed it most.

And the proceedings on December 3 began with renewed bench-warrant pressure because my wife was not physically present.

Within moments, the State announced a potential resolution and my case was called.

The package was straightforward:

I plead guilty and my wife’s prosecution goes away.

I specifically wanted to know how quickly her dismissal would be prepared.

The court tied her dismissal to my plea.

So I capitulated.

I pleaded guilty.

My wife’s bond was exonerated.

The no-contact restraint was lifted.

Her prosecution was dismissed.

I had demanded a trial for years.

I believed then, and maintain now, that I committed no crime. And neither did my wife. The bitter irony is that during the course of this entire fiasco, my court filings, submitted under penalty of perjury, document conduct by BOTH Rinetti and Peterson that I contend constitutes criminal conduct under Nevada law, and, as to Rinetti, under Arkansas law as well.

But by December 3, protecting my wife and stepson had become more urgent than protecting myself.

That is the coercion claim.

THE PERJURY ALLEGATION PETERSON WOULD HAVE TO JUDGE IF SHE REMAINS ON THE CASE

Earlier I stated that my use of the term “rogue judge” includes what I contend was a materially false sworn statement by Peterson herself.

Here is what I mean.

On November 18, 2025, I filed a motion and affidavit seeking Peterson’s disqualification.

Peterson responded under oath on November 19.

Paragraph 6 of her affidavit stated:

“A no contact Order with the minor child was issued by then Judge, now Justice Linda Bell WITH the Indictment Summons on September 25, 2019, this no contact order was never rescinded and never expired.”

Peterson further asserted:

“There are no time limitations on a no contact order issued pursuant to NRS 178.4851.”

Those were not immaterial statements about some side issue.

The supposed continuing 2019 no-contact “Order” had become central to the September warrants, the September 18 restraint, the Arkansas consequences and the remand effort.

The documentary comparison is straightforward.

The September 25, 2019 indictment summons contains a handwritten no-contact notation.

It is not the separate no-contact “Order” Peterson swore had been issued “with the Indictment Summons.”

The district court docket contains no separate September 25, 2019 no-contact order.

And Peterson’s own September 17 statements present another problem.

At that hearing, Peterson said that “likely what should have probably transpired” was an extending order and discussed extending the restriction for “another 120 days every single 120 days.”

Yet two months later, in her sworn November 19 affidavit defending herself against disqualification, Peterson asserted that the supposed 2019 order had “never expired” and had “no time limitations.”

My filed motion expressly contends that Peterson’s November 19 representation concerning the existence and perpetual duration of the supposed September 25, 2019 no-contact “Order” was materially false and constituted perjury under Nevada’s statutory framework.

That is an allegation.

It is a profoundly serious one.

And it is documentarily testable.

A neutral judge can compare Peterson’s sworn statement with the summons, the docket, the September 17 transcript and the subsequently created September 18 order.

Peterson cannot reasonably be expected to sit as the judge deciding whether Peterson’s own sworn factual account was false, what Peterson knew, what Peterson meant, whether Peterson’s account is credible, and what effect that disputed sworn account has upon the coercion claim now before the court.

That fact alone demonstrates how far beyond an ordinary disagreement with a judge’s prior rulings this case has traveled.

WHY THE TIMING MATTERS

The threat to the prosecution did not suddenly appear on September 5.

Dr. Semelka issued his report on January 13, 2025.

After that report was submitted, Rinetti obtained postponement of the February trial, representing that Semelka’s opinion necessitated another State expert.

Months later, Semelka finally testified.

Peterson admitted his testimony.

Peterson recognized it could change the tenor and ultimate result of the trial.

The jury trial was eleven days away.

Then the sequence above began.

My motion asks a neutral court to determine why.

One issue I believe warrants scrutiny is institutional self-protection.

Clark County operates the governmental structures involved in the prosecution and owns University Medical Center, including the hospital whose medical treatment lies at the center of my defense.

In plain English, the criminal prosecution and the public hospital whose treatment I contend caused Eason’s iatrogenic gadolinium injury exist within the same county governmental structure.

That does not by itself prove a conspiracy.

But it makes the documented decisions of the individual officials even more important to examine rather than dismiss.

Rinetti sought delay after Semelka’s report.

Rinetti sought the September stay after Semelka testified.

Rinetti triggered the Arkansas CPS process.

Rinetti sought the no-bail warrants.

Rinetti pursued remand.

Peterson repeatedly supplied judicial force to actions whose cumulative consequences fell upon my family.

Those issues deserve adjudication.

But they must be adjudicated by someone who was not one of the people whose conduct is being adjudicated.

JESSICA PETERSON CANNOT CONSTITUTIONALLY JUDGE HER OWN ALLEGED CONDUCT

This is why it is absurd to pretend that Peterson is simply another district judge being asked to decide an ordinary post-conviction motion.

She is one of the two principal Nevada court actors whose conduct the motion asks the court to examine.

This is not a case in which a litigant lost several rulings, disliked the judge and demanded another one.

The problem is structural.

The judge deciding my motion will have to determine the factual and constitutional significance of events in which Peterson herself personally participated.

That judge may have to assess Peterson’s September 5 actions.

Peterson’s September 8 issuance of the no-bail warrants.

Peterson’s September 17 statements concerning the NONEXISTENT no-contact order.

Peterson’s September 18 sealed no-contact order that came into being with no due process whatsoever.

Peterson’s refusal to provide effective emergency relief in November.

Peterson’s remand and surrender decisions involving my wife.

And Peterson’s own sworn November 19 factual account defending the disputed no-contact premise.

Peterson cannot be both a material participant in the coercion allegations and the neutral adjudicator deciding whether those allegations are true.

The United States Supreme Court has expressed the underlying principle in language understandable without a law degree:

“A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.”

And:

“No man can be a judge in his own case.”

My September 11 motion invokes In re Murchison, Tumey v. Ohio, Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Williams v. Pennsylvania and related authority.

Nevada’s own judicial rules are equally direct.

Rule 2.11(A) states that a judge “shall disqualify himself or herself” when the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

Comment [2] closes an obvious procedural loophole:

“A judge’s obligation not to hear or decide matters in which disqualification is required applies regardless of whether a motion to disqualify is filed.”

That word is shall.

Not may.

Not preferably.

Not when convenient.

Shall. To make the point perfectly clear, in legalese, “shall” is imperative. It means MUST. No ifs, ands, or buts.

WHY THIS ARTICLE AND THE FORMAL NOTICE TO JONES MATTER

In a functioning system, I should not need press coverage to help secure something as elementary as a neutral judge.

But I am dealing with the history described above.

I have watched Peterson proceed after legal defects were placed directly before her.

I have watched emergency requests fail to produce effective intervention.

I have watched my wife’s requests for new counsel be rejected while her liberty was at stake.

I have watched Peterson defend the disputed no-contact history under oath.

And my wife and I have already filed detailed judicial-discipline complaints without obtaining what we view as meaningful accountability.

So I am not going to remain silent and simply hope that this time will somehow be different.

I intend for this article to be published.

And I intend to place it before Chief Judge Jones through a formal Notice regardless of whether Peterson purports to take some action first.

The purpose is not to threaten a judge into ruling for me.

The merits of my NRS 176.165 motion belong before a neutral judge applying the law to the record.

The purpose is to eliminate plausible deniability.

Chief Judge Tierra Jones will know precisely what the constitutional problem is before Peterson is permitted to take control of the merits proceeding. In fact, it has already been spelled out in explicit detail in my motion. This public article amounts to a kind of insurance policy: Jones cannot later claim that she did not know what was happening, did not understand the constitutional problem, or was unaware of the consequences of allowing Peterson to adjudicate allegations concerning Peterson’s own conduct. Public accountability matters, and neither Jones nor Peterson should expect their decisions in this case to escape public scrutiny.

And there is another form of accountability available to the people of Clark County: the ballot box. My hope is that enough Clark County voters read this article, examine the documented record for themselves, and make their voices heard this November. I hope they elect Jones’s opponent, Austin Beaumont, and vote Peterson out of office.

If Peterson nevertheless attempts to adjudicate allegations about her own conduct, there should never later be any suggestion that the problem was obscure, that Jones did not understand it, or that nobody warned the court what was happening.

They were warned.

The issue was documented.

And the public record will show it.

JONES ALREADY USED THE “NOT YET FILED” EXCUSE

This is what makes the present moment different.

I tried to prevent this constitutional collision before filing the NRS 176.165 motion.

On July 13, I filed a detailed motion asking that Peterson be disqualified before I placed the plea-withdrawal motion before her.

Jones denied it.

I then sought reconsideration and explained the problem again.

First, determine whether Peterson can constitutionally hear a motion challenging her own conduct.

Second, after assignment to a neutral judge, file the NRS 176.165 motion.

Jones reversed that sequence.

On August 10, she acknowledged that:

“NRS 176.165 provides a mechanism by which a defendant may seek post-conviction withdrawal of a plea to correct manifest injustice.”

But she again denied relief because I had not yet filed that motion.

Fine.

Now I have.

There is no longer a “forthcoming” NRS 176.165 proceeding.

There is no longer a hypothetical motion.

There is no longer any argument that the constitutional collision has not materialized.

The motion is filed. The controversy is real. Peterson’s own conduct is central to it. And the procedural premise Jones relied upon in August is gone.

THIS IS NOW TIERRA JONES’S TEST

Chief Judge Jones has publicly presented herself as a judicial leader committed to neutrality, fairness, respect, transparency and justice.

My first State of the Nation article regarding her conduct contrasted those promises with her July 27 ruling.

Jones publicly said:

“Everybody deserves respect.”

She said that responsibility:

“starts at the top.”

I agree.

It does start at the top.

That is precisely why the conduct of the Chief Judge matters.

Jones has also publicly described the importance of judicial neutrality and transparency and referred to the court as belonging to the public.

Those principles are easy to pronounce in an interview.

The real test is what happens when honoring them becomes institutionally uncomfortable.

After the first article was published, I did not hide it from Jones.

I formally filed notice of that publication in the court record.

She then had another opportunity to address the problem.

She denied reconsideration anyway.

Now comes the third test.

And this one is fundamentally different.

Jones’s own stated procedural objection has been eliminated.

ALL EYES ARE NOW ON THE CHIEF JUDGE

This proceeding should not disappear into an administrative black box.

The press can read the filings.

The public can read the filings.

Nevada’s appellate courts can eventually review the filings and the rulings.

The Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline can review judicial conduct through the process established for that purpose.

And every ruling entered from this point forward will become part of a permanent chronology showing exactly what each judicial officer knew, what law was placed before that officer, and what that officer chose to do.

That is not a threat.

That is judicial accountability.

No judge should decide a case because a litigant threatens publicity, discipline or professional consequences.

Nor is a disciplinary complaint a substitute for legal argument.

But public office does not confer immunity from public scrutiny.

And a black robe does not convert a constitutional question into a private institutional matter.

The question before Jones is not whether she likes Austin Sachs.

It is not whether she agrees with my criticism of her.

It is not whether she dislikes the State of the Nation articles documenting her handling of this case.

And it is certainly not whether protecting another judge from scrutiny would be more comfortable for the institution.

The question is whether the Constitution and Nevada judicial law will be followed when doing so requires removing a fellow district judge from control of a proceeding that places that judge’s own conduct directly at issue.

THERE IS A LAWFUL WAY OUT

My September 11 motion does not ask Tierra Jones to decide whether my guilty plea was coerced.

I specifically object to Jones herself becoming the merits judge because her previous participation has now become part of the procedural history.

The lawful solution is straightforward.

Peterson disqualifies herself.

Jones performs the Chief Judge’s administrative responsibility necessary to ensure neutral reassignment.

A genuinely neutral judge with no prior involvement receives the NRS 176.165 proceeding.

That judge then decides the merits on the evidence and the law.

That is all.

Peterson’s personal Rule 2.11 obligation and Jones’s administrative responsibility are separate issues.

There is no legitimate reason to turn this into another procedural labyrinth.

THE THIRD TIME WILL DEFINE THE RECORD

Tierra Jones has already encountered this constitutional issue twice.

After the first time, she was publicly criticized.

By the second time, she knew exactly what the criticism was, knew the constitutional argument, expressly acknowledged NRS 176.165, and nevertheless relied upon the fact that the NRS 176.165 motion had not yet been filed.

There will not be that excuse a third time.

The motion exists.

It is pending.

Peterson’s own alleged conduct is central to it.

Peterson’s own sworn affidavit is part of the factual controversy.

Rule 2.11 says shall disqualify.

Comment [2] says the obligation applies regardless of whether a separate motion to disqualify has been filed.

And the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of a fair tribunal stands above any procedural device that might otherwise be used to avoid confronting the problem.

So this is no longer principally about what Chief Judge Tierra Jones said she believes about fairness, neutrality, transparency and justice.

It is about what she does when those principles require action involving another judge.

Will Jones facilitate a third round of the same constitutional failure after having been warned about it repeatedly?

Or will she finally ensure that a genuinely neutral judge, unconnected to the challenged conduct, adjudicates my motion to withdraw the guilty plea I contend was coerced through months of Rinetti-instigated, Peterson-complicit pressure against my family?

The filings are public.

The chronology is documented.

The constitutional question is squarely presented.

And this time, people are watching what happens next.

REFERENCE: Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark County, Nevada, Case No. C-19-343540-2.

DIRECT LINK TO THE MOTION TO WITHDRAW COERCED PLEA:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wM-LaR5RaUQap8wui3kzxvQeiuetAA0-/view?usp=sharing