Wallace Attorney Appointed Magistrate Simpson Will Begin In January, Replace Mccabe In 1St District

A Wallace attorney will take over for retiring 1st District Magistrate Paul McCabe.

Benjamin Simpson will start Jan. 3, 2000.

Simpson has extensive legal experience, including prosecution, defense and private practice. He was chosen Friday over four other applicants by the Magistrate Commission of the 1st Judicial District.

“He is extremely competent and has a tremendous work ethic,” said 1st District Judge Craig Kosonen, who served on the selection commission. “He’s one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever seen in my life. Everybody that would appear before him can be confident that they’ve been fairly heard.”

Twenty-seven people applied for the open position, and five were chosen as finalists. Besides Simpson, the finalists were Coeur d’Alene attorney Scot D. Nass; Kootenai County attorney Scott Wayman; Kellogg attorney Justin Julian; and Nancy Striklin, an attorney for the city of Coeur d’Alene.

Simpson will have resident chambers in the Kootenai County Courthouse. As with the 10 other magistrates in the 1st District, he will be assigned cases in each of the five northern counties on an as-needed basis.

Also, like other new magistrates, Simpson will be subject to removal by the commission during his first 18 months in office. Following that period, his name will be on the ballot of the next general election.

The commission selected a new magistrate well before its January deadline so the new judge could attend an annual educational program put on by the Idaho Supreme Court in November, said Don Swanstrom, trial court administrator for the 1st District.

“It takes a while to shift gears from advocating to adjudicating,” Swanstrom said.