Judicial candidates often try to win votes by promising they'll be tougher on crime than their opponents.
But Marsha Kimble-Simms, a challenger for North Las Vegas' Municipal Court Department 2, says the incumbent, Judge Sean Hoeffgen, is too tough, at least when it comes to nonviolent misdemeanors such as traffic offenses.
The court under Hoeffgen has levied excessive fines and jail sentences that are too lengthy for such offenses, said Kimble-Simms, a 48-year-old attorney with her own law firm. People often can't afford to pay the high fines and end up incarcerated "for minor tickets," she said.
"Nobody should go to jail because they couldn't afford to pay a fine," she said. "It's the poor people who suffer the most."
Kimble-Simms also said many of those arrested for failing to appear in court on traffic offenses stay away because they can't take time off work. Such people should have their warrants quashed and be released on their own recognizance, she said.
"The system needs to be more accountable to the people it's supposed to serve," she said.
Hoeffgen, 40, said only repeat, "habitual" offenders who refuse to change their behavior end up behind bars.
"If someone is driving without a license or insurance, typically prosecutors will ask for a suspended sentence to compel that person to stop doing that," he said. "If they continue, then, yes, they'll do 60 days in jail. We need to find a way to get them to stop."
The court always allows people to do community service in lieu of fines if they can't afford to pay, Hoeffgen said.
But "a significant portion of people, we don't see them until we get a warrant," he said. "We bend over backwards; we like them to comply. We don't want people to go to jail if it's unneeded."
Hoeffgen, a one-term incumbent, led Kimble-Simms in the primary by a mere 24 votes.
The 1996 graduate of the University of San Diego School of Law is a 10-year resident of North Las Vegas.
He brought to the city the Habitual Offender Prevention and Education Program (HOPE), which requires repeat, nonviolent offenders to seek jobs, do community service and take drug tests while serving one-year probations. Hoeffgen also started a DUI court in the city.
Kimble-Simms is a University of Detroit School of Law graduate licensed to practice in Nevada in 2003. She has lived in the city nine years. She previously worked as a prosecutor and a judge pro tem in North Las Vegas Justice Court. She ran unsuccessfully for justice of the peace last year.
Kimble-Simms is a foster parent and president of the Foster Care & Adoption Association of Nevada.
Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.
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