For ‘Stony,’ the farewell is fitting

Sam Skolnik

Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007 | 6:53 a.m.

Most court bailiffs don't rate lavish retirement ceremonies in the glass-roofed "canyon" lobby of the Regional Justice Center, complete with farewell toasts from the Clark County sheriff, the district attorney, the chief judge of District Court and a Las Vegas councilman.

But then most bailiffs aren't James "Stony" Jackson Jr., the man known as the mayor of the Clark County Courthouse.

Jackson says he's lived a colorful life. That's an understatement.

He's been a trailblazer, the first black man in his hometown's sheriff's department in west Texas. And he worked casino security in Las Vegas when laws were fewer and justice was often meted out in rough staccato bursts.

In the local legal community, Jackson is known as the bailiff who founded the courthouse armory and single-handedly improved relations with Metro Police. He developed a program that allows bailiffs to be trained on Metro's firing range and worked to enable the bailiffs to be tuned into Metro's radio frequency.

Jackson has also overseen several judicial investiture ceremonies and worked to allow judges and prosecutors who feel threatened to obtain concealed weapons permits.

Hired by then-Justice of the Peace Earl White in 1980, Jackson has also worked as the courtroom bailiff for District Judges Jeffrey Sobel and Jackie Glass. More recently, he's worked at the courthouse's security gate and information desk.

Having no birth certificate or Social Security card to refer to, Jackson isn't 100 percent sure of his age, but thinks he's 68. He grew up an orphan in Amarillo, Texas, he says, literally on the dirt-poor side of the tracks. He worked occasionally as a newspaper delivery boy and shoe shiner.

"I'd eat from garbage cans, any way I could make it," he says.

After bumping into the sheriff of Potter County, Texas, he began pestering him for a job. One day in 1955, Jackson says, Sheriff Paul Gaither grabbed him by his ear, took him into the station house and gave him a badge. No gun, no car. Not even a uniform. Just a badge.

(Jackson sheepishly admits that he lied to Gaither, who he says became like a father to him, telling him that he was 18 when he thought himself to be 16.)

Gaither told him to go into "the Flats," the black area of Amarillo, Jackson says, to stop blacks from killing one another.

"I started putting the law on 'em," he says, cracking down on public drinkers, brawlers and those carrying guns. It was a tough assignment, Jackson says, made tougher because of the flak from some in the white and black communities who resented his role.

Eventually Gaither gave him a pistol, and ordered his mostly resentful white officers to back up Jackson when necessary.

Jackson rose from deputy to captain. Along the way, he left Amarillo to start a detective agency in Dallas before returning to work for Gaither, who had returned to office.

Jackson remembers meeting Benny Binion in the early 1970s, when the ex-convict and Las Vegas casino founder was being held by a federal marshal at the Potter County sheriff's department. Binion told Gaither he wanted Jackson to work for him.

Jackson agreed to come to Las Vegas. After stints working security at Binion's and the old downtown Holiday International, Jackson met White, who persuaded him to leave the casino business and work for him.

Jackson says he was impressed by Binion, including how he dealt with cheaters in his casino. Referring to the notorious early Las Vegas casino back rooms, he said: "Let me tell you something. If you stole at Binion's, you'd wish you hadn't. He let me do what needed to be done" to persuade cheaters not to return.

Jackson is a beloved courthouse fixture. Around the Regional Justice Center on Friday, as the ceremony was set to begin, several other bailiffs and court staffers were wearing large "I Stony" buttons.

He's even had his favorite burger - topped with bacon, cheddar cheese, barbecue sauce and an onion ring - named after him in the courthouse cafeteria.

"He's basically an institution around here," says George Glasper, head of the Clark County Courts Marshals Association.

Glass has known Jackson since the 1980s and tagged him with the "mayor" honorific.

"He's just such a nice, hard-working man," she says. "He loved the courthouse and got such pleasure out of helping people."