Jackie Glass, the retired Clark County district judge whose 2008 sentencing of former football star O.J. Simpson sent him to prison for decades 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 stuntwoman best known for her work on “Jackass,” announced the death on social media. “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.
Glass died Friday afternoon after suffering heart failure during a mediation, her husband, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The family planned a private funeral, but word spread and about 250 people turned up for the Monday, August 31 service. Along with her husband, she is survived by 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. Presiding at a December 5, 2008, hearing in the Clark County Regional Justice Center, Glass sentenced him on armed robbery and kidnapping counts, imposing a term of up to 33 years with parole possible after nine. The charges stemmed from a September 2007 confrontation at the Palace Station casino. Simpson and five other men had stormed a hotel room there, trying to seize sports memorabilia he said belonged to him.
The judge rejected the apology Simpson delivered in her courtroom, described his conduct as arrogant as well as ignorant and sent him to prison in shackles. “It was much more than stupidity,” she said from the bench. “When you came in here to this courtroom, I wasn’t sure what you were — arrogant or ignorant or both, and now I know it’s both.”
Their friction predated the sentencing. Simpson breached the terms of his release in January 2008 by trying to contact a co-defendant, and Glass responded by doubling his bail to $250,000 and rebuking him in open court. “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 in July 2017 and released that October. He died in April 2024 at 76; his family said he had been battling cancer, and outlets reported it as prostate cancer.
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 waiting at KORK-AM, 920. She was later hired by KTNV-TV, Channel 13, where she covered crime and anchored newscasts — work that pushed her toward the law.
She earned her law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law in 1984 and was admitted that year to the State Bar of Nevada. Private practice occupied the next 18 years, with a caseload of personal injury and criminal defense matters. She spent 12 of those years at Wolfson & Glass, the firm she launched with her husband in 1990 and stayed with until 2002.
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 years before stepping down in 2011. The institutional work may be what lasts: Glass helped establish the Clark County Mental Health Court in December 2003, and a task force she assembled on competency to stand trial produced the Clark County Competency Court on November 16, 2005. The National Association of Counties recognized the competency program with an Achievement Award in 2007. In her final year as a judge she also oversaw the district’s drug and alcohol treatment courts. A onetime professional bodybuilder, Craig Titus, and his wife, the fitness competitor Kelly Ryan, faced a murder prosecution that was among the cases on her docket over the years.
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 Season 1 from Atlanta; Season 2 relocated the production to Los Angeles. “We’re excited to introduce viewers to another true original Judge Jackie Glass,” executive producer John Terenzio said at the time. “We are confident our viewers will enthusiastically embrace her.” The show ran from September 2010 until it ended in April 2012.
Tributes Pour in Across Nevada
Over the weekend, remembrances of a legal career spanning five decades arrived from 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 that she was “heartbroken and feel like I have lost a sister with the passing of Jackie Glass.” The two women began practicing law close to the same time, Berkley said, and over the past 50 years she had been amazed to see everything Glass accomplished. She extended the city’s good thoughts to Steve Wolfson and to her municipal court colleague, Rebecca Wolfson.
In a statement, Clark County said Glass was “a pillar of the legal community” who “shaped the justice system in southern Nevada, but more importantly she was a beloved wife and mother who will be missed tremendously.” The county extended its condolences to the district attorney and his daughters.
