Earle William White Jr.

Earle William White Jr. was a pioneering Nevada attorney and jurist who is remembered as a community leader who helped break down color barriers in the local justice system. Born November 18, 1933, in New York, he earned a bachelor of arts and social sciences degree from Harpur College in Endicott, New York, in 1956. After serving in the Army, he taught mathematics at a junior high school in Hawaii before studying at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., during the civil rights movement, where he served as editor of the school's Law Journal and graduated magna cum laude in 1963.

That same year, White moved to Las Vegas and built a successful private practice alongside a career of public service. He served as assistant counsel to Southwest Gas Corporation and as a deputy public defender in the 1960s, and as a hearing officer for the Nevada Equal Rights Commission in the 1970s. He was elected Justice of the Peace, Department 5, serving from 1980 to 1985, when he was appointed to District Court, Department 4. Elected to a full term in 1986, he was named chief judge by his fellow judges the following year. As one of the first people of color to ascend to the local bench, he was regarded as a role model who broke down barriers while earning wide respect for his work.

White continued to serve the state and community throughout his career. He was appointed in 1990 to the governor's committee on prison overcrowding, served in the late 1990s as a Nevada Supreme Court settlement judge, and was the last chairman of the city of Las Vegas Ethics Review Board. A member of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Nevada, and the Clark County Bar Association, he also chaired the board of trustees of Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center and Sunrise Children's Hospital. Among his honors, he received the Nevada Judges Association's Amicus Curiae Award in 1985 for dedication to Nevada's courts and was named Judicial Official of the Year for 1987 by the Nevada Conference of Police and Sheriffs. He died of cancer in Las Vegas on February 19, 2005, at the age of 71.