Justice for all: Van Landschoot runs tough but fair courtroom

Mathis Winkler

Monday, Feb. 25, 2002 | 11:06 a.m.

On the wall in Warren Van Landschoot's courtroom at the North Las Vegas Municipal courthouse hang several black-and-white photos of a legendary judge: the infamous Roy Bean, who held court in Texas in the late 1800s.

"It's kind of neat seeing his cowboy justice," Van Landschoot said when asked why he hung the pictures on the wall.

Not that Van Landschoot aspires to follow Bean's example. The latter ran a saloon in his courtroom and achieved Hollywood fame because of his greediness and loose interpretation of the law.

Van Landschoot said he has other motivations.

"I just like helping people," the 56-year-old said, reclining in his armchair from where he can see a sign that reads, "Nobody raises his own reputation by lowering others."

Still, running for judge was not something he would have thought about himself. People pushed him to do it because they felt the court wasn't run properly, he said.

A former North Las Vegas homicide cop who holds no law degree, Van Landschoot was elected to the bench in 1997 and again last year.

He's only one of two remaining non-lawyer municipal court judges in the Las Vegas Valley. While legal laymen on the bench remain common in more rural parts of Nevada, Las Vegas and Henderson have already restricted the post to lawyers. The state has no such restrictions.

Van Landschoot also is one of the busiest municipal court judges in the state. He handles almost triple the number of cases usually assigned to a judge.

To carry the workload, Van Landschoot has undergone extensive legal training and consistently receives high ratings from lawyers who appear before him.

But some, including one of his former campaign opponents, say North Las Vegas is getting too big for a non-lawyer judge.

"Things are becoming more and more complex and we need to make sure that people deciding the future of people are lawyers," said Lewis Gazda, an attorney who challenged Van Landschoot in the 2001 election.

Nevertheless, Gazda said he has a lot of respect for Van Landschoot.

"I never had a problem with the way he has done things," said Gazda, who has argued cases before the judge.

Others say Van Landschoot is more than qualified for the job of ruling on cases that are under the jurisdiction of a municipal court: traffic tickets, code violations, domestic batteries and other misdemeanors.

"What you need for these kind of cases is experience and common sense," said Deputy City Attorney Stephen Webster, who prosecutes cases in North Las Vegas and previously served as a Las Vegas Municipal Court judge.

"This judge knows a lot about criminal law, he's fair and he's got common sense," Webster said. "Sometimes lawyers don't have that. They lose that when they go to law school."

Chief Ken Ellingson, who heads the city's detention center and has known Van Landschoot for more than a quarter century, said the judge even commands respect among inmates he has put behind bars.

"He's tough, but he's fair," Ellingson said.

Van Landschoot's common-sense approach to the law is obvious in the courtroom.

He greets defendants with a friendly "How you doin'?" and is often willing to adjust payment plans for fines according to the needs of defendants.

A while back, a woman with severe health problems came to him and said she couldn't keep up with payments on a $640 fine.

"The city doesn't need your money," he told her.

It's his obligation to make such judgment calls, he said.

"Our computer doesn't have a conscience, it just issues a warrant," he said. "A judge has to have compassion."

Cross him, though, and Van Landschoot strikes back decisively.

"A hundred and seventy days in jail," he recently cut off a repeat offender who kept interrupting him. "You had that coming."

"Sometimes people just don't want to be helped," he said after returning to his chambers, where Little League appreciation plaques and his wood carvings cover the walls.

"Generally people don't end up in jail here," he said. "But some people just won't get the message."

An album filled with pictures of suicides, which he used for training purposes, serves as a reminder of his days as a homicide detective.

So does a gun that he carries for protection. He investigated hundreds of murder cases over the years, and he figures he may still have enemies, he said.

Safety wasn't an issue during Van Landschoot's childhood. He grew up on Taylor Avenue in the old part of North Las Vegas at a time when no one worried about locking their front doors, he said.

After graduating from Rancho High in 1964, he shelved goods at a grocery store before joining the police department, where he stayed for 30 years.

After three decades as a North Las Vegas police officer and hundreds of hours of judicial training, the judging part of his job came easy, he said.

Administering a courthouse, "that's what I had to learn," he said. "I had to learn how to manage a big business.'

The judge looks forward to the day when a proposed new courthouse with room for two colleagues opens down the street.

Construction for the $29.7 million project should begin later this year, with completion expected by early 2004.

Once the new building opens, Van Landschoot plans to focus on the paperwork and let the new judges handle most of the court cases.

But slowing down is the last thing on his mind.

He'll keep working "till I die," he said. "It's not because of the money, it's because it's fun."

His wife, Lynn, said she doesn't expect him to quit work anytime soon.

Retirement "would be the scariest thing in his life," Lynn said. "Grass does not grow beneath his feet."