Law Commons^™

Granada-Ruiz V. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 57 (Aug. 2, 2018) (En Banc), Sara Schreiber

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court concluded that double jeopardy did not prohibit the appellant’s retrial because he had implied consent to the district court’s declaration of a mistrial. Further, it held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding manifest necessity to declare a mistrial. Thus, the Court denied the appellant’s petition for a writ of mandamus that would direct the district court to grant his motion to dismiss and bar his re-prosecution.

Sayedzada V. State, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 38 (May 24, 2018), Sara Schreiber

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court held that a party waives the right challenge a juror’s presence on appeal when the argument is based on facts known during voir dire; the party consciously made the decision to not pursue, or abandoned, a challenge for cause; and the party accepted the juror’s presence on the jury. The Court then examined the issue of juror bias, and explained the differences between actual, implied, and inferable bias.

Moore V. State Of Nevada, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 35 (May 17, 2018), Casey Lee

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

No abstract provided.

Morgan Vs. State Of Nevada., 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 27 (May 3, 2018), Ronald Evans

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that a defendant is not entitled to cross examine examiners who find him incompetent at a competency hearing where neither party subpoenaed the examiner to appear at said competency hearing. The Court further decided that the State’s failure to transport an incompetent Defendant to competency treatment within seven days of receiving a court order did not warrant the dismissal of charges against the Defendant. The Court also held that the District Court did not commit a structural error when Defendant moved to strike the jury venire. The Court went on to decide that Defendant was not entitled …

Making The Evil Less Necessary And The Necessary Less Evil: Towards A More Honest And Robust System Of Plea Bargaining, Steven P. Grossman

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Bit By Bit: Breaking Down The Ninth Circuit's Frameworks For Jury Misconduct In The Digital Age, Jesse Gessin

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

State V. Sample, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 23 (Apr. 5, 2018), Sara Schreiber

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Gregory Frank Allen Sample (“Sample”) was arrested for driving under the influence. He had failed a preliminary breath test (“PBT”). The results of the failed PBT were used to obtain a search warrant for an evidentiary blood draw. The district court suppressed the PBT results because it concluded that the results were obtained in violation of Sample’s Fourth Amendment rights. The district court also suppressed the evidentiary blood draw because it was the fruit of an illegal search. The Court held that the district court erred in invalidating the telephonic search warrant and that the evidentiary blood draw should not …

Jeremias V. State, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 8 (Mar. 01, 2018), Maliq Kendricks

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Nevada Supreme Court determined that a judgment of conviction, pursuant to a jury verdict, of one count each of conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon and two counts each of robbery with the use of a deadly weapon and murder with the use of a deadly weapon, commands a death sentence.

State V. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 13 (Mar. 1, 2018) (En Banc), Connor Saphire

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that when the State conducts a direct-examination of a witness during a preliminary hearing, and then the defendant waives his right to that preliminary hearing, the defendant is said to have had an “adequate opportunity” to confront that witness as long as adequate discovery was available.

Petition For Writ Of Certiorari, Morrow V. Ford, Leslie C. Griffin, Marci A. Hamilton

Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Judicial Peremptory Challenges As Access Enhancers, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Discussions regarding diminishing access to justice have centered on the high disputing costs, gradual contraction of substantive rights, and increasingly defendant-friendly procedure. The importance of the ideological, experiential, and jurisprudential orientation of the judges presiding over litigation at the trial level has received much less-and insufficient-attention. Because so much focus has been on federal appellate courts, commentators have largely overlooked a potentially powerful tool for improving access and promoting a fair airing of claims at the trial level: a litigant's automatic ability to transfer a case to a different judge as a matter of right to avoid judges who are …

Game Of Drones: Rolling The Dice With Unmanned Aerial Vehicles And Privacy, Rebecca L. Scharf

Scholarly Works

This Article offers a practical three-part test for courts and law enforcement to utilize when faced with drone and privacy issues. Specifically addressing the question: how should courts analyze the Fourth Amendment’s protection against ‘unreasonable searches’ in the context of drones?

The Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence produced an intricate framework to address issues arising out of the intersection of technology and privacy interests. In prominent decisions, including United States v. Katz, California v. Ciraolo, Kyllo v. United States, and most notably, United States v. Jones, the Court focused on whether the use of a single …

Big Law, Public Defender-Style: Aggregating Resources To Ensure Uniform Quality Of Representation, M. Eve Hanan

Scholarly Works

Stories abound of public defenders who, overwhelmed with high caseloads, allow defendants to languish in pre-trial detention and guilty pleas to be entered without examining the merits of the case. Most defendants cannot afford to hire an attorney, and, thus, have no choice other than to accept the public counsel appointed by the court. In this Essay, I consider whether Professor Benjamin Edwards' central argument in The Professional Prospectus: A Call for Effective Professional Disclosure '-that attorneys should provide potential clients with a prospectus disclosing their performance history-applies to criminal defense. I reject the proposition that most people charged with …

Remorse Bias, M. Eve Hanan

Scholarly Works

In this article, Professor M. Eve Hanan addresses how implicit cognitive biases may affect judges when they decide whether to credit defendants' displays of remorse and how we can lessen the effects of that bias. Part I of this article introduces the main ideas to be discussed. Part II establishes the salience of remorse to punishment decisions and then demonstrates the ambiguity involved in assessing the sincerity of remorse. Part III examines existing research on implicit biases associating African Americans with criminality to consider whether judges are likely to view African American defendants' expressions of remorse as insincere and, thus, …