Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2004 | 9:18 a.m.
When Clark County Traffic Magistrate Jim Boyles volunteered in 1995 to work as judge for the new night traffic court, he said residents of a 24-hour town could not always be expected to conform to a daylight scheduled world.
"With the increasing number of citations, the extra session became necessary," Boyles told the Sun in a July 3, 1998, story. "The positive is that it allows us to help those who can't get in during the day because of work. For a lot of people, leaving work in the middle of the day could get them fired."
For nine years, until his heart attack two months ago, Boyles, who did not have a law degree, ran those Wednesday night court sessions, giving thousands of Las Vegans a convenient alternative to settling their traffic tickets or providing them with hearings to fight the citations.
James M. "Jim" Boyles died Saturday at Nathan Adelson Hospice-West of heart complications. He was 91.
Services for the Las Vegas resident of 62 years will be noon Saturday at Palm-Mortuary Jones. Visitation will be 5-7 p.m. Friday at the same location.
"If you believe that the law should be fair and logical, then Jim was the right man to be a judge," said Chief Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis.
"He was a remarkable man who brought almost 100 years of living to the bench -- what had he not seen in his lifetime? It was hard to pull the wool over his eyes because he knew the law even though he was not a lawyer, and he was held in high regard by attorneys because he was efficient, intelligent and witty."
Sonia McCants, senior management analyst for the county, who manages traffic, small claims and court education, echoed that sentiment.
"He was always fair and treated everyone equally," she said. "And while he strictly enforced the laws, Judge Boyles tried to give people breaks when they deserved them."
Lippis and McCants said Boyles, despite his advanced years, had expressed a desire to return to his job but never got well enough to do so. His calendar has been handled by pro-tem judges.
Lippis said the use of such referees will continue and that service to the public will not be interrupted. She said the position of traffic magistrate will be re-evaluated to determine whether the Justice Court will ask the Nevada Supreme Court to fill the post.
Boyles was appointed traffic magistrate by the state Supreme Court in 1987.
By the mid- to late 1990s, the county traffic court was handling 167,000 traffic citations a year, and more than 20,000 people were requesting hearings to fight the citations, creating a need for the night court to dispose of some cases.
Today, McCants said, 220,000 traffic citations are processed annually and about 50,000 of them are challenged in court.
On its web site, Justice Court officials call the 5-to-7:30 p.m. Wednesday night traffic court sessions as overseen by Boyles, "tremendously successful."
Born Aug. 20, 1913, in Dickens Texas, Boyles grew up poor during the Great Depression. He and his family were migrant workers who picked cotton in Arizona and fruit in California.
During construction of Hoover Dam, Boyles, in his early 20s, served as a supply manager and tort claims officer, both civil service jobs.
A Navy veteran of World War II, Boyles returned to Nevada after the war and settled in Overton, where he was a coroner's investigator and volunteer emergency medical technician.
He retired from civil service in 1972 and, in the 1980s, was elected Justice of the Peace in Overton. He served for three years before taking the appointed post of county traffic magistrate.
In his spare time, Boyles enjoyed traveling, fishing, gardening and auto mechanics.
He is survived by his wife, Stella W. Kellog-Boyles; a son, Robert Boyles; a daughter, Alice Jones; and a stepdaughter, Sandra Clarke, all of Las Vegas; four grandchildren; two step-grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Boyles was preceded in death by his first wife, Helen Boyles, in 1998.
archive
