"It's sad that it happens," a retired Clark County judge said a few hours after the attack. "But it happens."

 

Retired Las Vegas judge says courtroom attacks are not far-fetched

The wild viralness of the video of a man catapulting the bench in a Clark County courtroom and pouncing on the judge presiding over his case, indicates it’s a sight not many people have ever seen.

But for those who have donned the black robe for any length of time, the notion of such an attack is not so far-fetched. 

“It’s sad that it happens,” William “Bill” Kephart, a retired Clark County judge, said Wednesday, a few hours after the attack. “But it happens.”

Kephart was a judge for 10 years, first for four years in Las Vegas Justice Court and then in the Eighth Judicial District Court for the next six. His courtroom was just down the hall from his colleague’s, Judge Mary Kay Holthus, a former prosecutor and current District Court Judge. Holthus on Wednesday was attacked by a defendant she was sentencing in her courtroom, Deobra Redden, 30.

“You can see people in that courtroom care about her and want to make sure that she’s safe,” Kephart said, referring to Holthus’ courtroom clerk who can be seen on the video attempting to beat Redden into submission. A courtroom marshal and others also stepped in to free Holthus from Redden’s clutches.

Redden’s violent outburst is a reminder to judges like Kephart of how serious the stakes inside a courtroom are. Kephart told that given those stakes – and the tremendous volume of litigants and defendants who have business inside the Regional Justice Center –  it’s surprising there aren’t more episodes of this type. Moreover, he says, some judges may be swayed by the stakes of some of the criminal sentences they issue or decisions they make in multi-million-or-billon-dollar civil cases “I think there’s a few people that might be on the bench that recognize those threats… in a sense that it influences their decisions,” Kephart said. “And, Mary Kay’s not like that.”Holthus did not answer a phone call made to her cell phone Wednesday evening. That call went directly to voicemail. Similarly, a text message sent to her cell phone went unanswered. Another retired Clark County judge who spoke with KLAS indicated that, in her experience on the bench,  criminal defendants are more likely to turn on their own attorney than on the judge.