Shoshone County Prosecutor To Become New Magistrate

Shoshone County Prosecutor Dan McGee will be leaving office for a new job next month.

But he won’t have to go far - he won’t even have to leave his building.

The First District’s Magistrate Commission selected McGee to be the new Shoshone County magistrate judge, replacing the spot left by Judge Neil Walter.

“I think they made an excellent choice,” said Judge Don Swanstrom. “He goes above and beyond his call of duty as a prosecutor and I expect him to do the same as a magistrate.”

“It is something I’ve wanted to do since early on in my career,” McGee said Tuesday. “It is actually the desire to see that justice is served and the right result is obtained.”

McGee, 39, is a lifelong resident of Shoshone County where his family has lived for three generations. He is married to attorney Nancy McGee and is the father of two, Johnny, 8, and Molly, 4.

McGee’s grandfather first immigrated from Ireland to Burke, Idaho, to work as a blacksmith sharpening steel for the mines.

McGee graduated from Wallace High School in 1974. He got his undergraduate degree in business from the University of Idaho in 1979 and then returned to the Silver Valley to work in the mines for a year.

He got his law degree from Gonzaga in 1983 and went to work doing both private practice and public defense in Shoshone County with Barry Watson.

The two eventually split their partnership when Watson was selected to be a Kootenai County magistrate judge in 1992. That same year, McGee was elected Shoshone County prosecutor. McGee was running unopposed for his second term before being selected the new magistrate on Monday.

As a magistrate, McGee will hear traffic citations, divorce, domestic violence and criminal cases. Although he will be based in Shoshone County, he will be assigned cases throughout the five northern counties.

“He really bends over backwards to try and treat people fairly and with respect,” Watson said of his brother-in-law and former partner.

McGee will take office on July 1. County commissioners will select a prosecutor to replace him until the election. The county Democratic Party will select another candidate to run for prosecutor in his place.

, DataTimes