Retired Clark County district judge Jackie Glass, who sentenced former football star O.J. Simpson to decades behind bars in 2008 and went on to host the syndicated courtroom series “Swift Justice,” died 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, posting several more images of herself with her mother in the hours that followed.
No cause of death has been made public. Her husband, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, survives her, as do two daughters, Rachel, and Rebecca Wolfson, a sitting Las Vegas Municipal Court judge.
The Sentencing That Shaped Her Public Image
To much of the country, she was the judge who locked up Simpson. 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 Simpson and five other men had burst into a hotel room in an attempt to take sports memorabilia he said was his.
Simpson’s apology in court did not move her. Glass told him his conduct had been arrogant as well as ignorant, then sent him off to prison in shackles. “It was much more than stupidity,” she said from the bench.
It was not their first clash. Simpson breached the terms of his release in January 2008, and his bail was doubled to $250,000 by the judge, who rebuked him in open court. She asked aloud whether arrogance, ignorance or some mix of the two explained his behavior.
Simpson won parole in 2017 and died of prostate cancer in April 2024 at 76.
From Broadcast News to the Bench
Born in New York in 1956, Glass came to Las Vegas in 1978, carrying a journalism degree from the University of Georgia, and got a reporting job at KORK-AM, 920. KTNV-TV, Channel 13, later hired her to cover crime and anchor newscasts, and that beat pointed her toward the law.
She finished her law degree at the University of San Diego School of Law in 1984 and gained admission to the State Bar of Nevada that same year. Personal injury and criminal defense work then filled 18 years of private practice for Glass. Wolfson & Glass, the firm she started with her husband in 1990, accounted for 12 of those years, and she remained with it until 2002.
Voters elected her to Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court in 2002. She was seated in 2003 and worked civil and criminal dockets for eight years, then stepped down in 2011. Her most enduring contribution may have been institutional: the Clark County Mental Health Court, which she helped establish in December 2003, and a task force she assembled on competency to stand trial that 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 on the bench, she also supervised the district’s drug and alcohol treatment courts. Among the cases on her docket was a murder prosecution against Craig Titus, a one-time professional bodybuilder, and his wife, Kelly Ryan.
A Second Act on Television
Glass traded the courtroom for a studio in 2011, succeeding former Georgia prosecutor Nancy Grace as host of “Swift Justice,” the CBS syndicated show that resolved real small-claims disputes through arbitration. Grace had fronted Season 1, and for Season 2 the production moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Audiences were about to meet another original voice, the show’s executive producer, John Terenzio, said at the time, predicting that viewers would take to her. Having begun in 2010, the series ended in April 2012.
Tributes Pour in Across Nevada
Over the weekend, a legal career that touched five decades drew tributes from across Nevada. Former Clark County District Attorney David Roger prosecuted the Simpson case in Glass’ courtroom; in a statement, he called her a respected jurist and, more meaningfully, a warm and friendly person.
Heartbreak and the sense of having lost a sister were what Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley described in a post on X. The two women entered the legal profession around the same time, she noted, and Glass’ accomplishments had left her marveling. Steve Wolfson and Rebecca Wolfson, her municipal court colleague, received the city’s condolences from Berkley.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said the news left her stunned and grieving. On X, she described Glass as a role model who inspired others, who spent her life pursuing justice on their behalf, and whose light went out far too early.
In a statement, Clark County called Glass a pillar of the legal community who helped shape southern Nevada’s justice system, but said she was above all a beloved wife and mother. The Nevada Broadcasters Association & Foundation called her legacy an extraordinary one that stretched into broadcasting, journalism, law and public service, saying countless lives had been touched by her career.