2012 Voter Guide: Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Department 1

An attorney who was admitted to the bar in 2005 is challenging a 20-year incumbent for Las Vegas Justice of the Peace, Department 1.

Vincent Ginn, who has experience both as a defense attorney and as a prosecutor for the City of Las Vegas, is running against Deborah Lippis in the nonpartisan race for a six-year term. Ginn said he doesn't have a "burning desire" to specifically unseat Lippis, who received a 69 percent retention rating from 107 attorneys in the Las Vegas Review-Journal's 2011 Judicial Performance Evaluation.

"But she has been on the bench for 20 years without ever having an opponent," Ginn said. "I'm not saying that change is necessary, but part of our democratic process requires that someone is challenged."

Lippis said she worked in the area where she now presides for 10 years before she took the bench.

"I hope I have brought, certainly, an incredible amount of experience," she said. Her biggest accomplishments, she said, were taking part in mediation and diversion programs to help reduce the recidivism rate.

Currently, she said, she's working on a community court and would like to see that program through to fruition. Similar to a program already in place in New York, it would, she said, involve nonviolent offenders who could enroll in job training and placement programs that would be "right here for them." They would be supervised, she said, and receive social services, such as drug abuse and addiction treatment and impulse-control counseling.

"Whatever we can do as a community to get these people out of the criminal justice system, which means we have fewer victims in our community," Lippis said.

Ginn said he sees a judicial post as a natural next step .

"I always wanted to help people, which is why I became a lawyer," he said. "The natural progression to help people is to become a judge."

He said he would pledge to look at every case individually.

"I know that every incumbent says that they do, but in reality, they don't," Ginn said. "Everyone is grouped into a certain category and sentenced as such."

He also said he would like to establish some kind of youth offenders' court.

Overall, he said, he feels that deals are too easily made, leading to convictions instead of diversion and leaving offenders unable to get jobs.

"I would pledge to be in my office as long as it takes to go through every case to be sure no one's getting overrun by overzealous prosecutors or underqualified defendants," he said.

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.