The Nevada Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Tuesday that Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman did not break ethics laws when he served as the host of a cocktail party at which his son, Ross Goodman, pitched a then-new bit of political software aimed at creating digital media kits for politicians.

The ruling comes after District Court Judge Mark Denton overturned a finding of the state Ethics Commission, which said that Goodman did violate ethics laws, although not willfully. The question came down to whether Goodman’s use of his title violated NRS 281.481(2), which prohibits a public officer from using his position in government to grant an unwarranted privilege to any person to whom he has a commitment in a private capacity. (The high court’s ruling came in the form of an order upholding Denton’s ruling, and the eight-page document is not posted at the court’s website.)

We’ve had a keen interest in this case, ever since we came out with our own opinion back in the day that Goodman was not guilty. We stipulated that Goodman used his title to invite a few other mayors to hear his son’s political pitch. But we argued that since Goodman had no power over those mayors — he could neither reward them if they used the software nor punish them if they did not — then the use of the title didn’t rise to the kind of abuse contemplated by NRS 281.481(2).

But we can also appreciate the reasoning of the Ethics Commission, which in an investigative report and a final ruling held that the use of his title in and of itself constituted the granting of an unwarranted privilege to Ross Goodman’s efforts. In fact, we admitted error when the Ethics Commission’s ruling came down. (It turns out we should have waited for the appeals!)

The ruling raises interesting questions: Can an elected official in Nevada use his or her position in government to accrue business for a family member? (We know the use of your position to benefit yourself is still verboten, as the unlamented former state Sen. Sandra Tiffany discovered with her admission to willful violations of ethics laws after she used her title to try to peddle her Internet surplus selling services to officials of other states.) But if a mayor decides to hold a cocktail party at which a product sold by a son or daughter is featured, is that legal? Is it ethical? And does that question turn on whether the lawmaker has any power or dominion over the audience? We’re not sure about the answers in light of the ruling.

Finally, two somewhat ironic notes on this story. If there’s one person we have to thank for this appeal, it’s Carolyn Goodman, the mayor’s wife and Ross Goodman’s mother. While the mayor was content after the Ethics Commission ruled against him to "take it like a man," it was Carolyn Goodman who urged him to appeal and clear the black mark from his record. It turns out she’s got pretty good legal instincts, too.

Oh, and as for the software that was at the heart of the case? As near as we can tell, it was never produced. The company that Ross Goodman formed (along with partner and disgraced former Las Vegas Councilman Michael Mack) was called iPolitix, a subsidiary of Santa Monica, Calif.-based iMedia International Inc. It was announced in January 2004, but not much has been heard from the company since.

Notably, a news release announcing the now-infamous cocktail party can still be found on iMedia’s website.

You can also find on that same website an April 2005 news release, in which iMedia announced it had "completed production of a custom promotional disc for the mayor of the city of Las Vegas, the Honorable Oscar B. Goodman." We followed up on that news release with several calls to company President Scott Kapp, asking for a copy of the disc, but were told even months afterward that the disc was still in production, despite the publicly traded company’s claim that production was complete.