2 weeks Ago By Estelle Atkinson
Nevadans can expect to see several newcomers on the bench across Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas Justice Courts, according to initial election results released late Tuesday. Preliminary results showed that, notably, attorney James Dean Leavitt was coming in second in a five-candidate race for the Las Vegas justice of the peace seat in Department 4, receiving 23.6 percent of the vote.
Suzan Baucum was the frontrunner as of around 10 p.m., leading with 28.
1 percent of the vote over Leavitt, Jessica Smith-Peterson, Hilary Heap and Holly Stoberski. Leavitt’s former unsuccessful contests for judicial seats have been marked by controversy , including accusations that he once hit a roadside flagger, which he denies. In the Las Vegas race for a seat in Justice Court’s Department 2 between incumbent Joseph Sciscento and Chief Deputy Public Defender Kristal Bradford, Bradford was pulling ahead Tuesday night with 51.
1 percent of the vote, initial results showed. This year is the first time Sciscento has faced an opponent. Bradford, who said she wanted to take the bench after years of representing the “most vulnerable people in our society,” questioned a mailer sent out by Sciscento’s campaign that advertised an endorsement from the Republican Party, despite judicial races being nonpartisan.
Sciscento said the support came from the Nevada Republican Club and reprinted the mailers. In Las Vegas Justice Court Department 5, Justice of the Peace and former chief judge Cynthia Dustin-Cruz was leading in the polls against Chief Deputy District Attorney Madilyn “Leavitt” Cole with 51.6 percent of the vote, initial results showed.
Cole said Justice Court needed a strong leader after Dustin-Cruz stepped down from her chief judge role, a move that Dustin-Cruz said she made in order to keep “doing phenomenal work” on the various committees she sits on. Dustin-Cruz said Cole’s use of her family’s “Leavitt” name was her “trying to ride on the coattails of somebody else’s reputation.” Cole said she is proud of her identity and wanted people to know who she is.
Dustin-Cruz also criticized a GOP emblem on one of Cole’s mailers, but Cole said the group in question wasn’t the GOP and did not violate judicial canons. In Department 8, candidate Nancy Bernstein was leading Tuesday night ahead of her opponent, Amy Ferreira, with 50.1 percent of the vote.
Bernstein, a criminal defense attorney and civil litigator, said she was inspired to run after her ex-husband Dennis Prince was shot and killed at his Summerlin law office in April. Ferreira, a hearing master, said she hoped to be a voice for those who can’t speak for themselves. Elsewhere, veteran prosecutor Sandy DiGiacomo had won 58.
3 percent of the vote as of around 10 p.m., leading over public defender Marla Renteria in a race for a Justice Court seat in Henderson.
In North Las Vegas, hearing master and former Army aviation officer Jonathan Cooper was pulling ahead of former lone North Las Vegas Municipal Judge Sean Hoeffgen for a Justice Court seat with 74.8 percent of the vote, according to initial results. This is a developing story.
Check back for updates..
