Former judge, community leader White dies at age 71

Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2005 | 11:11 a.m.

Former Clark County District Judge and Justice of the Peace Earle William White Jr. is being remembered today as a community leader who helped break down color barriers in the local justice system.

White, who also served as the last chairman of the city of Las Vegas Ethics Review Board before it was disbanded in 2002, died Saturday of cancer in Las Vegas. He was 71.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 42 years will be at 5 p.m. Thursday at the University United Methodist Church, 4412 S. Maryland Parkway.

"He paved the way for people of color in the local legal profession," said American Civil Liberties of Nevada Executive Director Gary Peck. "As one of the first people of color to ascend to the local bench he broke down barriers and was a role model for others who aspired to achieve important goals.

"But not only did he ascend to the bench, once he was there he also did a job that commanded respect and he was well-liked by a lot of people. It is very difficult to achieve both of those things."

Longtime local civil rights activist Tom Leigh called White "a viable force in the entire community."

"His work as head of the city's ethics committee certainly did a lot to benefit all of the people here," Leigh said.

White served as Justice of the Peace Department 5 from 1980 to 1985, the year he was appointed to District Court Department 4. White was elected to a full term in 1986 and a year later was named chief judge by his fellow judges.

White achieved despite death threats from white supremacists who opposed a black man sitting in a position of power.

Born Nov. 18, 1933, in New York, White earned a bachelor of arts and social sciences degree from Harpur College in Endicott, New York, in 1956.

After serving in the Army, he taught mathematics at a junior high school in Hawaii before going to Washington, D.C., during the civil rights movement, where he studied at Howard University School of Law and was editor of the school's Law Journal.

White graduated magna cum laude in 1963.

That same year he moved to Las Vegas and began carving out a successful private practice and public service career. He served as assistant counsel to Southwest Gas Corporation and deputy public defender in the 1960s and as a hearing officer for the Nevada Equal Rights Commission in the 1970s.

In his bid for a second full term on the District Court bench, White was defeated in 1990 by Gerard Bongiovanni.

In addition to serving seven years on the city's ethics board, which was disbanded because it was duplicative of the state ethics commission, White was appointed in 1990 to the governor's committee on prison overcrowding and served in the late 1990s as a Nevada Supreme Court settlement judge.

White was a member of the American Bar Association, State Bar of Nevada and Clark County Bar Association.

As a civic leader, he served as chairman of the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center and Sunrise Children's Hospital's board of trustees and was a member of Toastmasters International, twice being named Toastmaster of the Year.

Among his honors, White was presented in 1985 with the Nevada Judges Association's Amicus Curiae Award for dedication to Nevada's courts and was named Judicial Official of the Year for 1987 by the Nevada Conference of Police and Sheriffs.

He is survived by his wife Janice White of Las Vegas and two sons, Michael White of Glen Allen, Va., and Bobby White of Las Vegas.

The family said donations can be made in Earle White's memory to the University United Methodist Church Building Fund.