Monday, June 15, 2020 | 3:43 p.m.
The chief judge of Nevada’s highest court won re-election Monday, while a veteran state judge and a defense attorney-turned-state assemblyman are headed for a runoff for the other state Supreme Court seat on the primary ballot.
With votes still being tallied from Tuesday's election, Chief Justice Kristina Pickering was well above the 50% needed to defeat attorneys Esther Rodriguez and Thomas Christensen to win another six-year term on the seven-member court.
Judicial races are non-partisan.
Clark County District Court Judge Douglas Herndon was leading state lawmaker Ozzie Fumo, but neither reached the 50% level. They must face off again in November for the seat held by retiring Justice Mark Gibbons.
Herndon headed the district attorney’s office special victims’ unit before he was appointed to the state court bench in 2005. He has acknowledged that as a prosecutor, he helped convict a man of a 1992 murder he did not commit.
Fumo is a defense attorney and Democratic lawmaker who helped represent paroled former football hero O.J. Simpson during his appeal of his 2008 conviction in an armed robbery case in Las Vegas.
Pickering along with her husband worked at a prominent Las Vegas commercial litigation firm before she was elected to the state high court in 2008.
