Judge Herndon thrust into the spotlight

Friday, Dec. 8, 2006 | 7:10 a.m.

District Judge Douglas Herndon, who on Thursday put the state's new smoking restrictions on hold, has handled a good share of high-profile cases.

Herndon, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Kenny Guinn in January 2005 and ran unopposed in September, has had three whoppers in the last month - two of them in the last two days. The gaming industry might appear to be beneficiaries of two of them, and his political party applauded the third.

"He was a superstar deputy DA, so you can only expect that he will be a superstar judge," Las Vegas defense attorney and longtime friend Robert Langford said. "He has a good deal of concern for his community."

On Thursday Herndon granted a 15-day restraining order to prevent law enforcement officers from enforcing a voter-approved statewide smoking ban that was to take effect today. A hearing on the matter was set for 9 a.m. Dec. 19.

On Wednesday he threw out a lawsuit by Wynn Las Vegas card dealers who resent the new house policy of having to share tokes with supervisors.

Last month, Herndon, a Republican, ordered the release of the Oct. 13 surveillance tapes from the Las Vegas parking garage where 32-year-old cocktail waitress Chrissy Mazzeo claimed that Republican gubernatorial candidate and eventual winner Jim Gibbons had assaulted her.

Herndon disclosed before that ruling that Gibbons' top campaign adviser Sig Rogich had given the judge $250 for his campaign war chest, but he did not disclose that Rogich had lobbied a Guinn aide to get Herndon appointed to the bench.

In court Thursday Herndon acknowledged campaign contributions from gaming firms that were fighting Question 5's strict public smoking ban, and said he wouldn't be swayed by public opinion in his strict interpretation of the law.

Herndon said he had received campaign contributions from the Jones Vargas and Kummer Kaempfer law firms representing plaintiffs as well as contributions from some defendants in the case.

Herndon also said his office had been "inundated" with phone calls from the public, including many Question 5 supporters. One anonymous caller, he said, left a message stating that "you'd better protect this law or we're going to remember this come election time."

The Clean Indoor Air Act, approved on Nov. 7, would ban smoking in bars that serve meals and in slot machine sections of grocery and convenience stores, among other places.

Herndon said plaintiffs had a "reasonable likelihood of success" in proving the measure was unconstitutional.

Among Herndon's other rulings:

Herndon's selection to oversee high-profile cases is not limited to Southern Nevada. State Supreme Court Justice Bob Rose appointed him to serve as judge in the Darren Mack case in Reno.

Mack is charged with fatally stabbing his estranged wife, Charla, on June 12 and attempting to kill Washoe Family Court Judge Chuck Weller that same day in a courthouse shooting that Weller survived.

As a local prosecutor dating from the early 1990s, Herndon was chief of the Special Victims Unit, handling child abuse homicides and the sexual abuse of women and children.

Herndon, who earned his law degree in 1990 from Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Va., could not be reached for comment .

Sun reporter Liz Benston contributed to this story.