Jackie Glass, the retired Clark County district judge whose 2008 sentencing of former football star O.J. Simpson sent him to prison for nine years and who later hosted the syndicated courtroom series “Swift Justice,” died August 28, 2026, in Las Vegas at the age of 70.
Her daughter Rachel Wolfson, a comedian and stunt performer who was the first woman in the main cast of the “Jackass” franchise, announced the death in a social media post. “rip my rock, I don’t know how I’ll do this life without you, I love you so much mommy Jackie Glass, I’ll see you again someday,” Wolfson wrote, in remarks reported by KTNV.
Glass died on Friday afternoon after suffering heart failure in a mediation, her husband, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on September 1. She had worked as a mediator since leaving the bench. The family arranged a private funeral, but word spread and 250 people turned up for the Monday service. Along with her husband, she is survived by her two daughters, Rachel and Rebecca Wolfson; Rebecca sits as a Las Vegas Municipal Court judge.
The Sentencing That Defined Her Public Image
To much of the country, she was simply the judge who locked up Simpson. A jury convicted him on all 12 counts, and at a December 5, 2008, hearing in the Clark County Regional Justice Center Glass imposed a sentence of nine to 33 years on armed robbery and kidnapping counts. The charges stemmed from a September 13, 2007, confrontation at the Palace Station casino, where Simpson and five other men stormed a hotel room to seize sports memorabilia he said was his.
“I have to tell you now, it was much more than stupidity,” she said from the bench. She then returned to a question she had put to Simpson at a bail hearing months earlier and answered it: “Earlier in this case, at a bail hearing, I asked — said — to Mr. Simpson I didn’t know if he was arrogant or ignorant or both. And during the trial and through this proceeding, I got this answer, and it was both.”
That was where the phrase originated. Simpson breached his release terms by mentioning a co-defendant in a message to his bail bondsman, and on January 16, 2008, Glass doubled his bail from $125,000 to $250,000. “I don’t know if it’s just arrogance. I don’t know if it’s ignorance,” she told him. “But you’ve been locked up at the Clark County Detention Center since Friday because of arrogance or ignorance — or both.”
Simpson was granted parole on July 20, 2017, and released on October 1. He died on April 10, 2024, at 76. His family said only that he had “succumbed to his battle with cancer”; his lawyer, Malcolm LaVergne, confirmed two weeks later, from the death certificate, that it was metastatic prostate cancer.
The two met once more, and Simpson never knew it. Rachel Wolfson posted a photograph of her mother standing beside him after his release. “OJ loved beautiful blonde women, so my mom’s friend baited him into taking a picture,” she wrote. “He had no idea he was taking a photo with the judge who sent him to prison.” The image drew 2.1 million views on X.
From the Newsroom to the Bench
Originally from New York, Glass came to Las Vegas in 1978 with a journalism degree from the University of Georgia and a reporting job at KORK-AM. She later covered crime and anchored newscasts at KTNV-TV, Channel 13, work that pushed her toward the law.
She earned her law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law in 1984. Private practice occupied the next 18 years, 12 of them alongside her husband. The two were the first criminal defense lawyers to advertise on local television, billing themselves as “Wolfson and Glass for the defense.”
Voters elected her to Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court in 2002. She took the bench in 2003 and worked civil and criminal dockets for eight and a half years, resigning on June 10, 2011, to take the television job. Glass helped establish the Clark County Mental Health Court in 2003, and a task force she assembled on competency to stand trial produced the Clark County Competency Court.
Among the cases on her docket was the prosecution of the bodybuilder Craig Titus and his wife, the fitness competitor Kelly Ryan, over the death of their personal assistant, Melissa James, 28, whose body was found burned beyond recognition in Ryan’s torched Jaguar in December 2005. Titus pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and arson; Ryan to arson and battery with a deadly weapon causing substantial bodily harm. Glass sentenced them on Friday, August 22, 2008, Titus to 21 to 55 years and Ryan to six to 26. “The tears are crocodile tears,” she said.
A Second Act in Syndication
Glass traded the courtroom for a soundstage in 2011, taking over from former Georgia prosecutor Nancy Grace as host of “Swift Justice,” the CBS-syndicated program that resolved real small-claims disputes through binding arbitration. Grace had fronted the first season from Atlanta after the series premiered on September 13, 2010; Glass’ season began on September 12, 2011, with production moved to Los Angeles. The final original episode aired in April 2012.
Tributes Pour in Across Nevada
Former Clark County District Attorney David Roger, who personally prosecuted the Simpson case in her courtroom, said in a written statement: “My family and I are very sad to hear about the passing of Jackie Glass. She was a respected jurist. But more importantly, she was a warm and friendly person.”
Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley wrote on X: “I am heartbroken and feel like I have lost a sister with the passing of Jackie Glass. We both started practicing law close to the same time and over the last 50 years I have been amazed to see everything she accomplished.”
