Before Jackie Glass questioned witnesses from the bench, she reported on crime for Las Vegas television. Glass, 70, the former Clark County district judge who presided over O.J. Simpson's 2008 robbery trial and later hosted Swift Justice, died on August 28, 2026, in Las Vegas. Her daughter Rachel Wolfson announced the death, according to The Hollywood Reporter via Yahoo News. FOX5 Vegas also reported Glass's death.

Glass's path to the courtroom began in a newsroom. She earned a journalism degree from the University of Georgia in 1978, moved to Las Vegas, and reported for KORK-AM 920 before becoming a reporter and anchor at KTNV-TV Channel 13. A University of San Diego School of Law alumni profile said the crime beat prompted her to study law. She earned her J.D. there in 1984.

She spent 18 years in private practice, including 12 years at Wolfson & Glass, the firm she founded with her husband, attorney Steve Wolfson. Voters elected her to Department 5 of Nevada's Eighth Judicial District Court in 2002. She took office in 2003 and handled civil and criminal cases. When national cameras arrived for major trials, Glass drew on her first profession. "Being a former journalist has helped me in dealing with high profile cases," she told her law school's alumni magazine.

Her judicial work reached beyond headline cases. Glass helped establish the Clark County Mental Health Court in 2003, then created a task force that led to the county's Competency Court in 2005. The National Association of Counties honored that program with a 2007 Achievement Award. During her final year on the bench, she also oversaw Clark County's drug and alcohol treatment courts.

The case that made Glass nationally recognizable arrived in 2008, when she presided over O.J. Simpson's Las Vegas robbery and kidnapping trial. A jury convicted Simpson on October 3. At sentencing that December, Glass imposed prison terms amounting to a minimum of nine years and a maximum of 33 years. The Los Angeles Times reported that she focused on the force used in the hotel confrontation and the recorded evidence before the court. The proceeding brought intense coverage, but it was one part of eight years spent hearing civil and criminal matters.

Glass left the bench in 2011 and moved into a different kind of courtroom. On May 24, NextTV reported that CBS Television Distribution had selected her to succeed Nancy Grace on Swift Justice as production moved to Los Angeles. Glass presided over real disputes whose participants agreed to televised binding arbitration. She hosted the second season, and the series ended in 2012.

Glass then returned to private legal work, joining Private Trials in 2012 and Advanced Resolution Management in 2015. She worked as a mediator, arbitrator, consultant, and private judge. Across reporting, litigation, judging, television, and mediation, her work repeatedly required clear questions and practical decisions.

Glass was married to Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson. Their daughters were Rachel Wolfson and Las Vegas Municipal Court Judge Rebecca Wolfson. Former Clark County District Attorney David Roger called Glass a respected jurist and "a warm and friendly person."

Glass's public record remains visible in the Las Vegas broadcasts that began her career, the Mental Health and Competency courts she helped build, the rulings from Department 5, a season of nationally syndicated television, and years of private resolutions reached away from cameras. The Simpson sentence brought her widest audience, while Clark County carries the quieter architecture of her work in specialty courts and mediation rooms.