NV: How Public Defenders Rocked Las Vegas Judge Elections

[theappeal.org – 12/21/20]

Community organizing in Nevada’s Clark County helped judicial candidates “flip the bench” to challenge cash bail and mass incarceration.

When Christy Craig started working at the public defender’s office in Clark County, Nevada, in 1998, she didn’t plan to ever run for judge. “I knew that was my gig,” Craig said. “I couldn’t have been happier to be there.” Since then, Craig has represented thousands of defendants and scored landmark wins in suits against the State on issues of correctional mental health and cash bail.

But soon Craig will be leaving the public defender’s office to become a judge on the Eighth Judicial District Court, the criminal and civil court of Clark County, which includes the Las Vegas metro area.

It was a colleague who gave her the idea to seek election last January. “I was sitting in my office and I was complaining about the bench,” Craig said. Suddenly Belinda Harris, a public defender who had already announced her candidacy for a judgeship, shouted from her office: “Well, shut up and run!”

So Craig entered the race and won on Nov. 3—alongside Harris and five other public defenders.

These seven public defenders, all women, many women of color, are now set to become judges in January. Harris is heading to the North Las Vegas Justice Court; the others were elected to the Eighth Judicial District Court, despite many being significantly outraised by their opponents.

The results will alter Clark County’s political landscape, strengthening the hand of those who want to change practices that fuel mass incarceration. Several of the public defenders described their candidacies as an effort to “balance” the courts, as judgeships in Clark County have historically been dominated by former prosecutors, as is often the case nationwide.

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If it can be done in Nevada, it can be done in other states.

A TREND?

IMO, No. There are organized efforts now underway by certain political groups to support judicial nominees with backgrounds in civil rights.and other lawyer non mainstream advocate types. The groups advocating these kinds of judges have a political attitude of progressives and are publicly doing so. The death of RGB seems to have lent impetus to their efforts.

Janice is situated herself in the extreme in that aspect. And while most might think her choice of advocacy, against the tide of all tides, will not nor could not result in judgeship on a Superior Court underestimates the American people’s nostalgic hankering for constitutional dignity and discipline in our judgeships.

People and most of lame steam media claimed The Don could not be prez.

This direction of change in the legal landscape in Nevada would seem to bode well for any ongoing challenges to NV’s Adam Walsh Act, I would think.