Brad Horn/Nevada Appeal
Bill Maddox has spent most of his 30-year law career in the fishbowl of the public eye.
Except for the '90s, when he was one of Carson City's top defense lawyers, he has been in public service, beginning as an assistant Carson City district attorney.
Maddox spent the past eight years as a district judge but chose not to run in 2008. He officially left office this past week when his successor was sworn in.
"There are so many cases as judges that you can't really do the quality work you'd like to do," he said. "With the volume of cases you have, you don't have time to give the people who appear in front of you the kind of attention you'd like to give them."
Maddox started with the Carson District Attorney's office in 1978, then succeeded D.A. Dave Small in 1981. Sen. Paul Laxalt tapped him for the U.S. Attorney's spot in Nevada, and President Ronald Reagan appointed him in 1985. He held that job four years, giving him a total of 12 years as a prosecutor.
Maddox wasn't the kind of guy who sat behind a desk. He said he tried 28 jury trials in state courts and 10 in the federal courts as well as numerous non-jury trials.
"That's why I was one of the better defense attorneys in Carson City," he said. "I know how the prosecution works."
He decided not to run for judge again to give himself a break.
"I need to get away for a while," Maddox said, sitting in his dining room where he is wrapping up his last half-dozen cases.
He wants to use the time to convert a couple of small houses he owns near the courthouse into legal offices to rent out.
Then he said he'll have to get a job " probably as a lawyer. But, whatever he does next, it will almost certainly be in Carson City.
"When I was a kid, I moved around so much I appreciate being here," he said. "Dad was a miner so he moved wherever the work was."
By eighth grade, Maddox had attended school in more than a dozen cities in Idaho, Oregon, California and Nevada.
Maddox left Carson City after graduating from high school in 1965 to attend Texas A&M. But he got derailed in his senior year and wound up back in Carson City, broke and too late to get into UNR.
With the Vietnam War in raging and no student deferment, Maddox was drafted into the Army in 1969. He reported for duty the day before his 22nd birthday.
That's when he says he made a big mistake: "I was told they never send you anywhere you want to go, so when they asked me what foreign countries I wanted to go to, I put down Southeast Asia," he said. "About that time (President Richard) Nixon said he wouldn't send any more people to Vietnam unless they volunteered. There I went."
His unit was regularly in combat. His assignment on patrol: Point man.
Once, he said, he should have been dead when he walked through a booby trap.
"I stepped on that wire and thought, I'm dead."
When they dismantled the trap, they discovered the mine's battery was dead.
Altogether, he spent 410 days "in country." By the time he left, Maddox had been awarded the Bronze Star, the Air Medal and Combat Infantry Badge. But he was discharged before getting the medals. Not until recently when he contacted the military about benefits did he ask them what happened to those medals. They arrived shortly thereafter, but Maddox says he isn't sure why he wanted them.
"I'll just put them in a box somewhere."
- Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.