District Judge Jessie Walsh to retire next week
Judge Jessie Walsh is stepping down from the bench next week, leaving a second vacancy in Clark County District Court.
In a letter to Gov. Brian Sandoval, the 58-year-old Walsh stated that she would retire Jan. 13 so that she “may attend to personal and family matters.”
Chief Judge David Barker is retiring at the end of this week, with future plans to travel and work as a visiting professor in Odessa, Ukraine, for the Center for International Legal Studies.
Walsh, often one of the lowest-rated judges in the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s judicial performance surveys, has presided over Department 10 since January 2003. She ran unopposed in 2014 and was re-elected to a term set to expire in 2021.
Through a court spokeswoman, Walsh declined a reporter’s request for an interview.
On Thursday, the Nevada Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Selection is scheduled to discuss a timeline to interview candidates for the two open seats.
In March, the high court ordered a new trial in a civil case after finding that Walsh made too many errors in a 2011 trial.
A 2013 survey of lawyers in Clark County found that only 42 percent of respondents favored keeping Walsh on the bench.
Walsh was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in Nevada, according to a biography on the court website. She graduated from Bishop Gorman High School and later earned a law degree from the University of Arizona.
Former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman appointed Walsh to the Municipal Court bench in 1999.
Throughout her legal career, Walsh also worked as a prosecutor, public defender and private attorney.
She also served as a congressional staffer for former U.S. Sen. Paul Laxalt and U.S. Rep. Barbara Vucanovich, both Republicans.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.
