Jackie Glass, the retired Clark County district judge who hosted the syndicated courtroom series “Swift Justice” and who in 2008 sentenced former football star O.J. Simpson to decades behind bars, died on August 28, 2026, in Las Vegas. She was 70.
Her daughter Rachel Wolfson, a comedian and stuntwoman, announced the death on Facebook alongside a photograph of the two of them. “Rip my rock, I don’t know how I’ll do this life without you,” Wolfson wrote. In the hours that followed, more images of the two of them together went up on her account.
What killed her has not been disclosed publicly. Her survivors include her husband, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, along with Rachel and Rebecca Wolfson, the two daughters she leaves behind; Rebecca serves on the bench as a Las Vegas Municipal Court judge.
The Sentencing That Made Her a National Figure
To much of the country, she was simply the judge who put Simpson away. At a hearing on December 5, 2008, inside the Clark County Regional Justice Center, the armed robbery and kidnapping counts drew from Glass a term of up to 33 years, with parole possible after nine. Those charges grew out of a September 2007 confrontation at the Palace Station casino, where a hotel room was stormed by Simpson and five other men trying to seize sports memorabilia he said belonged to him.
Simpson apologized in court, and Glass brushed the apology aside, telling him his behavior had been both arrogant and ignorant before sending him off to prison in shackles. “It was much more than stupidity,” she said from the bench.
It was not their first clash. Glass had doubled his bail to $250,000 in January 2008 after he breached the terms of his release, rebuking him in open court and asking aloud whether arrogance, ignorance or some combination of the two explained his conduct.
Simpson won parole in 2017 and died of prostate cancer in April 2024 at 76.
From Reporting the News to Hearing Cases
Glass, a New York native born in 1956, moved to Las Vegas in 1978 with a University of Georgia journalism degree and a job reporting for KORK-AM, 920. KTNV-TV, Channel 13, later brought her aboard to cover crime and anchor newscasts, and the beat nudged her toward the law.
She finished her law degree at the University of San Diego School of Law in 1984 and was admitted to the State Bar of Nevada that same year. Personal injury and criminal defense work then filled 18 years of litigation for her in private practice. Of those years, 12 were spent at Wolfson & Glass, a firm she founded with her husband in 1990 and left in 2002.
Voters elected her to Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court in 2002. She took her seat in 2003 and spent eight years on civil and criminal dockets before stepping down in 2011.
Her most enduring contribution may have been institutional. 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 honored the competency program with an Achievement Award in 2007. In her final year as a judge she also supervised the district’s drug and alcohol treatment courts, and her caseload included the murder prosecution of onetime professional bodybuilder Craig Titus and his wife, Kelly Ryan.
A Second Act in Syndication
Glass traded the courtroom for a television studio in 2011, taking over from former Georgia prosecutor Nancy Grace as host of “Swift Justice,” the CBS syndicated series that resolved real small-claims disputes through arbitration. Grace had fronted Season 1; for Season 2, the production moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Eagerness to introduce audiences to another original voice was how the show’s executive producer, John Terenzio, framed the hire at the time, and he predicted viewers would take to her. The show’s run, which began in 2010, came to an end in April 2012. Glass had also been working as a mediator after retiring from the bench in 2011.
Tributes Pour in Across Nevada
In the days after her death, her legal career spanning five decades drew tributes from across Nevada. Among them was a statement from former Clark County District Attorney David Roger, who prosecuted the Simpson case in Glass’s courtroom; he called her a respected jurist and, more meaningfully, a warm and friendly person.
Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley said she was heartbroken in a post on X, and that it felt like losing a sister. The two came into the legal profession around the same time, Berkley said, and she had marveled at everything Glass achieved. Condolences from the city went out through her to Steve Wolfson and to Rebecca Wolfson, a colleague of hers on the municipal court.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., described herself as stunned and grieving after hearing the news. On X, she described Glass as an inspiring role model who devoted her life to seeking justice for others, and said her light was extinguished too soon.
Clark County described Glass as a pillar of the legal community who helped shape southern Nevada’s justice system, and added that she was above all a beloved wife and mother. Broadcasting, journalism, law and public service were all touched by what the Nevada Broadcasters Association & Foundation called an extraordinary legacy, one the group said reached countless lives over the course of her career.
