Right inset: U.S. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson (9th Circuit). Main: Nelson allegedly pictured sprinting after a man he's accused of battering to stomp on his sunglasses during parking lot argument in April 2026 (Idaho State Journal).
A federal appeals court judge who once backed President Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard in Oregon could face a disciplinary probe, now that a parking lot altercation and misdemeanor case against him in Idaho has been revealed months after the fact.
The April 2 incident in Idaho Falls was reported just three days ago in the Idaho State Journal, a delay in transparency that at least one complainant wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to investigate and explain.
Newly reported video and audio allegedly showed U.S. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson involved in a war of words with another pickup driver, seemingly over a botched parking job outside what appeared to be a Home & Hospice Center.
The State Journal reported that Nelson was set off by the other man telling him to "learn how to park."
"I said it twice. That's when he went crazy," the man reportedly said, claiming the judge's behavior escalated from there.
Nelson was charged with misdemeanor battery and malicious injury to property in Bonneville County.
The judge allegedly reached for the man's phone, grabbed his sunglasses and hurled them across the parking lot, then sprinted and stomped on the spectacles before the alleged victim could pick them up. The report said Nelson admitted to police that he stomped on the man's sunglasses but denied hitting him. Nelson has since pleaded not guilty, and his attorney told the State Journal his client "will work through the judicial system to resolve these personal charges which allegedly resulted in a pair of broken sunglasses and are unrelated to his professional position."
Fix the Court, a group that describes itself as a nonpartisan nonprofit advocating "for non-ideological fixes that would make the federal courts, and primarily the U.S. Supreme Court, more open and more accountable to the American people," submitted a complaint over the weekend to Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Mary H. Murguia, a Barack Obama appointee. The complaint came in the form of a letter by the group's executive director, Gabe Roth.
Just like its complaint against former Trump criminal defense lawyer and high-ranking DOJ official Emil Bove after his controversial elevation to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the group relied on the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act to demand that Nelson be admonished.
"According to court records reported on in the press, Judge Nelson engaged in a verbal spat over a parking space that afternoon that quickly escalated. The records describe, and video of the incident from a nearby security camera confirm[s], that Nelson took the glasses off the other person involved and tossed them across the parking lot; stomped on the glasses and grabbed at the other person's phone. Nelson is heard on the video calling the other person an 'a—hole' five times in under a minute," the complaint said, faulting Nelson for behavior "inconsistent with his ethical obligations."
"[A] judge 'should maintain […] high standards of conduct and should personally observe those standards […].' That Canon applies to behavior both inside and outside the courtroom, as one does not stop being a federal judge once he leaves the courthouse," the complaint added. "Second is my concern that a row over a mere parking spot could set the judge off like this — it does not bode well for those appearing before him in court if he happens to be having a bad day, as April 2 appears to have been for him."
Calling for an admonishment or warning at a minimum, the group urged the 9th Circuit to explain "why there has been a two-month delay by Nelson and by the Ninth Circuit between when the incident happened and when the larger public learned about it."