A federal appeals court judge nominated by President Donald Trump in 2018 has been charged with misdemeanor battery and malicious injury to property following an altercation in an Idaho Falls parking lot, court records show.
Judge Ryan D. Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit pleaded not guilty on May 13 to both charges, which were filed April 22 in Idaho's 7th Judicial District in Bonneville County. A pretrial conference is set for June 18.
The case, State of Idaho v. Nelson, No. CR10-26-03905, stems from an April 2 incident involving Nelson and an unnamed man, Bloomberg Law reported, citing an earlier account from the Idaho State Journal. The Idaho State Journal also published video of the incident, which Bloomberg Law described as showing Nelson acting aggressively in the parking lot.
The facts publicly available remain thin. Bloomberg Law said it was unable to obtain the underlying records describing the incident. No details about alleged injuries or property damage have surfaced in the reporting. The motive for the altercation, if one has been stated, is likewise absent from the public record so far.
The Idaho Falls city prosecutor's office, led by city attorney Zachary Jones, filed the charges and is prosecuting the case. Jones did not immediately return a request for comment. Neither did Nelson's attorney, Curtis Reed Smith, representatives of the Ninth Circuit, nor Idaho Falls police.
That wall of silence leaves the public with a bare-bones timeline and a pair of misdemeanor counts against a sitting federal judge, and not much else.
Nelson, who was born in Idaho Falls and sits there today, has served on the Ninth Circuit since his confirmation in 2018. President Trump nominated him to the court that same year. The Ninth Circuit, headquartered in San Francisco, covers nine western states and two Pacific territories and is the largest federal appellate court in the country.
Federal judges hold lifetime appointments under Article III of the Constitution. A misdemeanor conviction would not automatically remove Nelson from the bench, but it would raise serious questions about judicial conduct and could trigger review by the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit.
No statement from the court has addressed whether Nelson's caseload or duties have been affected.
The sequence of events is straightforward but still developing. On April 2, the altercation occurred in an Idaho Falls parking lot. Twenty days later, on April 22, the Idaho Falls city prosecutor filed charges. Nelson entered his not-guilty plea on May 13. The Idaho State Journal broke the story on a Friday, and Bloomberg Law followed up the next day, reaching out to all parties, none of whom responded.
The next scheduled court date is June 18, when a pretrial conference will take place in Bonneville County.
Several gaps in the record deserve attention. Who is the man Nelson allegedly confronted? What does the video published by the Idaho State Journal actually depict? What specific conduct does the battery charge allege, a push, a strike, something else? And what property was allegedly damaged?
These are not trivial details. Misdemeanor battery in Idaho can range from unwanted physical contact to more forceful conduct. The severity of the underlying facts will shape whether this case amounts to a minor legal headache or a genuine threat to Nelson's career on the federal bench.
Equally important: will the Ninth Circuit or any federal judicial oversight body weigh in? So far, the court has offered nothing.
Conservatives rightly insist that the rule of law applies to everyone, including, and especially, those who wield judicial power. A federal judge charged with battery deserves the same presumption of innocence as any other defendant. Nelson has pleaded not guilty, and the case has barely begun.
But the public also deserves transparency. A sitting appellate judge facing criminal charges in his own home district is not a routine matter. The Ninth Circuit's silence, the prosecutor's silence, and the lack of accessible underlying records all work against the kind of open accountability that builds trust in institutions already under strain.
If the facts exonerate Nelson, they should come out quickly. If they don't, the system needs to work the way it would for anyone else standing in a Bonneville County courtroom.
The measure of a legal system worth defending is whether it holds its own officers to the same standard it imposes on everyone else.
