Longtime Las Vegas jurist Carl Christensen dies at age 86

Services will be held Tuesday for Carl Christensen, who served as a Clark County District Court judge for more than 22 years.

Christensen died of congestive heart failure Sept. 23 at Southern Hills Hospital. He was 86.

After retiring from the bench, the Las Vegas attorney kept working alongside his son, Tom Christensen, at his son’s Las Vegas practice, and tried his last case at age 80, according to an obituary.

“I think the happiest he was, was when he retired from being a judge,” his son Ray Christensen said Sunday. “He worked with my brother. It combined the two things he loved the most — family and his work.”

When a conflict of interest came up for another sitting judge, he also would volunteer to take assignments in other counties throughout the state.

“He’d come up with an idea and go out and do it,” Ray Christensen said. “He did, and went. I admire him for that. I’d be lucky if I’d got half of that.”

Carl Christensen was on the panel that hired now-retired District Court Judge Valorie Vega when she first started working at the Regional Justice Center as supervisor of court interpreters in 1978.

Christensen encouraged Vega to go to law school at USC, wrote her a letter of recommendation and promised her a job in his courtroom after she graduated. She moved back to Las Vegas after she graduated in 1982 and began clerking for him that fall.

“He was just a great mentor to me,” Vega said in a phone interview Saturday afternoon.

As she and her husband reminisced about Christensen last week, they pulled out a photo album and flipped to photos from the day he swore her in as a district judge in 1999.

“The most important thing I learned from him was how important it was to be prepared when you walk into a courtroom. If you’ve done the correct preparations and you’ve listened with open ears and an open mind, you’ve done your best,” Vega said.

“If not, the Supreme Court would tell you so,” she said with a laugh.

Clark County Public Defender Philip Kohn , who used to live in Tahoe, said he fought his first case in Las Vegas before Christensen in 1992. Kohn appeared in Christensen’s courtroom countless times after the attorney moved to Las Vegas, he said.

Kohn called Christensen a “well-thought-of and well-respected judge” and said he was shocked and saddened at the news of his death.

“Judge Christensen was an excellent gentleman and a really fine jurist,” Kohn said.

The last living of five siblings, Christensen is survived by his wife of 35 years, Ellen; daughter, Mary Christensen; sons, Ray and Tom Christensen; and blended family, Michael Minson, Robyn Brown and Rebecca Freebairn. He is also survived by 31 grandchildren; and 52 great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be 5 to 7 p.m. Monday at Palm Mortuary, 1600 S. Jones Blvd. and 10 to 10:45 a.m. Tuesday. The viewing on Tuesday will be followed at 11 a.m. by a funeral service at the LDS church, 6325 W. Hacienda Ave. A graveside service will follow at Woodlawn Cemetery, 1500 Las Vegas Blvd. North.

Contact Kimber Laux at klaux@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283. Find @lauxkimber on Twitter. Contact Natalie Bruzda at nbruzda@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3897. Follow @NatalieBruzda on Twitter.