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Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett, a candidate for 5th District Court Judge, urged cases originating in Pahrump to be tried in Pahrump, a statement incumbent Judge John Davis blasted as "disingenuous."

The three district judge candidates appeared at a meet and greet at the Artesia Community Center Thursday night. Another candidate forum sponsored by the Pahrump Republican Women's Club, will be held at the Pahrump Nugget at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Beckett conceded the 5th District is a huge district, comprising Nye, Esmeralda and Mineral counties. But he said, "The majority of the cases still are generated from the Pahrump area.

"It's my belief both district court judges should spend a majority of their time down here because this is where the workload is and what I've seen, there's a logjam, there's a backlog of cases," Beckett said.

"You've heard the saying, 'justice delayed is justice denied.' I want to see that logjam broken up. I want to see these cases moved. I've been watching criminal cases set out for six months. I don't want to see civil cases set out for a year. That's unfair to the parties involved.

"I want to see Pahrump cases tried in Pahrump, Tonopah cases tried in Tonopah, Esmeralda cases tried in Goldfield and Mineral County cases tried in Hawthorne," Beckett said.

Beckett said it's inconvenient for a witness, who may have to testify for only 15 minutes, to drive up to Tonopah and spend a night there. It's disruptive to Pahrump victims to have to go up to Tonopah, bringing people for moral support, being pulled away from their jobs, he said.

Davis, who remarked he first came to Pahrump as a mining engineer in 1962 and has been a judge for 36 years, said he worked with the state assemblyman and state senator to help change the Nevada constitution in 1998 to allow district court to be held outside the county seat.

After Judge Robert Lane was elected to the newly-created 5th District Department 2 bench in 2001, the two judges came up with an agreement to split the criminal caseload from Pahrump.

"Basically Judge Lane is able to stay in Pahrump. I do the traveling. Last year I totaled 13,580 miles. But that's a substantial savings to the people over when I was driving 40,000 miles," Davis said.

Davis said about 29 percent of the people in his district live north of Pahrump and still have to be served.

After hearing Beckett's remarks, Davis said during the question and answer session, "Unfortunately Mr. Beckett has been disingenuous in solving the problem of going to Tonopah. The problem is there's no court in Pahrump. There is now one courtroom and two judges, Judge Lane is the presiding judge in Pahrump. I come down one day a month to do the criminal calendar -- my criminal calendar. I have to set my jury trials around his trials."

"It's hard for me to get a trial placed in Pahrump. Often times I have to move those cases to Tonopah, where the defendants get tried in a timely manner," Davis said. With some anger in his voice, he added, "Mr. Beckett knows that."

When asked after the forum ended about a second district court room in Pahrump, which should be under construction soon, Davis didn't say whether that would encourage him to hear more Pahrump cases in Pahrump.

In his speech, Beckett said there are already opportunities for Davis to hold more trials in Pahrump.

"There's a lot of down time in the courtroom here, and I think the cases could be handled here more often," Beckett said. "Still, the majority of cases originate here in Pahrump, and so both district court judges should live here and spend the majority of their time here in Pahrump."

During conversations with the audience afterwards, Davis indicated state court districts could be redrawn in the future, possibly putting Mineral County into another district. Hawthorne, the county seat of Mineral County, lies another 110 miles north of Tonopah, or 275 miles north of Pahrump.

The third candidate for 5th Judicial Court, Nye County Senior Deputy District Attorney Marla Zlotek, stayed out of the heated argument. Zlotek stressed her qualifications, graduating in the top percentage of her law class, with licenses to practice law in Pennsylvania and Nevada.

"I have been practicing law for 15 years. I don't have fancy stories and I won't bicker on whether we should have court programs or not. Simply put, I have worked as a public servant paid by your tax dollars in Nye County for 13 years. I have criminal law experience and civil law experience," Zlotek said.

She detailed spending countless hours preparing for employment arbitration cases, civil forfeitures and providing opinions to county officials.

"While the quantity of legal experience is important, it is the quality of the legal experience that shows in the preparation and presentation of cases," Zlotek said.