Voters to fill new court spots

Jace Radke

Wednesday, Sept. 2, 1998 | 10:51 a.m.

Six candidates emerged from the primaries Tuesday night to advance to the general election for new District Court Departments 17, 18 and 19

Michael Cherry and Jim Mahan advanced in Department 17, Judge Nancy Saitta and Stephen Webster moved on in Department 18, and in Department 19 Judge Gary Redmond and Drake Delanoy were the winners.

Cherry, 53, took 37.69 percent of the vote in the four candidate race, and Mahan had 31.87 percent.

Cherry has been a Las Vegas lawyer for 28 years, and for the last two years, he has served as Clark county's special public defender, overseeing mainly death penalty cases.

Mahan, 54, has been a lawyer for 24 years and said that he is concerned that victims of crime are too often victimized again by the legal system.

Saitta enjoyed the biggest margin of victory in the three District Court primaries taking in 49.49 percent of the vote, while Webster tallied 27.49 percent in the three candidate Department 18 race.

Saitta, a 47-year-old Municipal Court Judge, is looking to move to District Court after serving two years on the lower bench.

Webster, 48, was a Municipal Court Judge from 1985 to 1993 and before that served as a deputy city attorney in North Las Vegas.

Redmond, captured 36.61 percent of the vote in his bid to move from Family Court to District Court. The 63-year-old recently recovered from heart transplant surgery.

Delanoy, 70, received 19.38 percent of the vote for second in the five candidate race. He is currently the chairman of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and he has served as a chief deputy district attorney.

The three new departments were added to alleviate some of the workload in District Court. New judgships are often filled initially through appointment by the governor, but the Legislature decided to let voters make the selections for the seats that will be filled in January.

The new judges will have the authority to handle civil and criminal cases, but will be assigned to civil cases initially because their makeshift courtrooms on the fourth floor of the Clark County Courthouse are not large enough to handle criminal trials.

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