INNOCENCE CENTER
OF NEVADA
KRISTINA WILDEVELD
Founding Board Member
Kristina Wildeveld is a lifelong resident of the Las Vegas community and a Criminal defense attorney currently in private practice, practicing in anything from traffic tickets to first-degree murder, and death penalty defense. She's been in practice for over twenty-five years. The first ten years of her career she did only first-degree murder defense and litigation and specialized in juveniles facing the death penalty in the Offices of the Special Public Defender. Since then, while in private practice, she has maintained an interest in juvenile law acknowledging the shortcomings of the Nevada system and forming a niche of representing juveniles charged with the most serious of offenses in both high-profile and big-impact cases.
Due to her efforts, numerous antiquated laws concerning the justice system as it applies to juveniles were updated and progressively improved. It is this deep commitment to children and their rights, not just offenders, but victims as well, that led this mother of four to be appointed to the Governor's Commission on Juvenile Justice as a State Advisory member (2005-2013) in addition to many other criminal defense and community boards such as the Supreme Court Bench Bar Commission (2015 -), Supreme Court Commission on Juvenile Justice (2015 -), Hope for Prisoners Board (2014 -2020), Bishop Gorman High School Alumni Board (1988 -) and CASA Foundation (1995 -). Featured on the cover of Las Vegas Life Magazine in 2000 acknowledging her efforts in taking on the system for the underdog, and receiving an award from the American Bar Association in 2001 as Juvenile Defender of the Year for work in representing 14 year old, Conan Pope, who killed his abusive father while protecting his sister from harm. She was awarded Criminal Defense attorney of the Year of the State of Nevada in 2016 by the Nevada Defense Bar for her work on eliminating Life without the Possibility of Parole for juveniles in the State of Nevada.
Since her admission to the bar in 1995, Kristina has been a tireless and vocal advocate for reform within the criminal justice system and for juveniles and a champion for all of her clients, never forgetting the inequities she sees in court day in and day out and striving to rectify them. She was worked on getting Wrongful Exoneration Compensation Legislation successfully passed which has in turned allowed her clients to be awarded money from the State for their wrongful convictions.