The sole black judge in Clark County District Court, 55-year-old Lee Gates, is considered one of the most liberal judges at the courthouse.

As one defense lawyer put it, Gates tends to go with his gut, and "his gut is more defense-oriented."

Gates presided over the capital murder case of Donte Johnson, who in 2005 was sentenced to death for a quadruple murder. The families of Johnson's victims accused Gates of trying to protect Johnson from execution.

But the defense attorney in that case, Bret Whipple, said that Gates was being extra cautious to ensure the 7-year-old case was not reversed in a higher court.

Gates is known to have a temper and will snap at attorneys only to have his anger dissipate seconds later.

Gates has won re-election since being appointed to the bench by Gov. Bob Miller in 1991; Gates was re-elected in 1992, 1996 and 2002.

He served as chief district judge for two years, starting in 1998, and has served on the Supreme Court Task Force on Gender and Racial and Economic Bias and led the State Bar's minority relations committee.

After earning his bachelor's degree in 1974 from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Gates graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder law school in 1977. He passed the bar exam in Colorado that year and in 1986 passed the exam in Nevada.

He is married to former Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates. Police have been investigating whether she misused political contributions to enrich herself, but no charges have been filed.

JUDGE JACKIE GLASS

District Judge Jackie Glass is reputed to be one of the toughest judges at the Regional Justice Center when it comes to sentencing.

She has been known to impose harsher sentences than the ones recommended by prosecutors and the Division of Parole and Probation, a lawyer said.

But another lawyer said Glass is not pro-prosecution; rather, she is equally hard on both sides to move cases through the system, imposing tougher sentences on only violent offenders.

Glass already has a high-profile case on her hands: the murder case of Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan, two nationally competitive body builders who are charged with killing their live-in personal assistant.

Glass also is the administrator of the Mental Health Court, a specialty court that evaluates defendants' competency to stand trial. In 2005, she sent former NFL kicker Cole Ford, who later pleaded guilty to shooting at the house of illusionists Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn, to a mental institution.

Glass, 51, was elected to the bench in 2002 in a no-holds-barred race in which Glass spent the most of any judicial candidate to oust incumbent Jeff Sobel. Glass had accused Sobel of giving light sentences, and after the election, Sobel said Glass viewed her election "as a mandate for toughness on crime."

She has been married to Las Vegas City Councilman Steve Wolfson, a criminal defense attorney, for about two decades. Before her move to the bench, they ran a family-owned law firm, specializing in criminal cases.

Glass was born in New York. The judge's family moved to Savannah, Ga., when she was in the 11th grade. She graduated from the University of Georgia and moved to Las Vegas, where she worked as a reporter for a couple of radio stations before she began covering crime as a reporter for KTNV-TV, Channel 13.

She later graduated from the University of San Diego Law School and passed the Nevada bar exam before her 1984 graduation.