Criminal Law Commons^™

Summary Of Guitron (Miguel) V. State, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 27 (May 21, 2015), Aleem Dhalla

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) the State presented sufficient evidence for a jury to convict Guitron of incest and sexual assault, (2) the district court did err by not allowing Guitron to introduce evidence of the victims sexual knowledge, but this error was harmless, (3) the district court did err refusing to give the jury Guitron’s requested inverse elements instruction, but this error was also harmless, and (4) Guitron could not show that the district court erred by denying his Batson challenge.

Summary Of In Re: L.A.W, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 24 (May 7, 2015), Jessica Gandy

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined, pursuant to the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as well as Article 1, § 18 of the Nevada Constitution, a public school cannot condition a student’s access to a free public education upon consent to random searches of his person and property. Evidence gathered from random administrative searches must be suppressed in criminal proceedings.

Free Will Is No Bargain: How Misunderstanding Human Behavior Negatively Influences Our Criminal Justice System, Sean Daly

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Mentally Ill Who May Kill Go Unreported Still: Exploration Of Potential Nevada Nics Reporting Reform, Craig D. Friedel

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Oversight Hearing On Juvenile Justice In Indian Country: Challenges And Promising Strategies, Addie C. Rolnick

Congressional Testimony

In her testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Prof. Rolnick describes her research and recommendations concerning how to improve juvenile justice for American Indian and Alaska Native youth.

Assumed Sane, Fatma Marouf

Scholarly Works

In 2014, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) held in Matter of G-G-S- that a noncitizen’s mental health status at the time of an offense is irrelevant to determining whether the offense is a “particularly serious crime” for immigration purposes. Since a “particularly serious crime” is a bar to asylum and withholding of removal, it can result in a noncitizen’s deportation to a country where he or she faces a serious risk of persecution. In deciding that immigration judges “are constrained by how mental health issues were addressed as part of the criminal proceedings,” the BIA failed to recognize the …

Non-State Armed Groups And The Role Of Transnational Criminal Law During Armed Conflict, Christopher L. Blakesley, Dan E. Stigall

Scholarly Works

With the ascendance of the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the international community has struggled to adapt to the new international security context. Among the challenges that are currently being confronted are questions relating to how states may effectively facilitate international cooperation to counter ISIS (especially among countries in the Middle East and North Africa). Within this context, guidance from the United Nations on international cooperation posits that “[t]he universal counter-terrorism conventions and protocols do not apply in situations of armed conflict” – a legal position that would serve to stymie important cooperative …

Advocacy As An Exercise In Virtue: Lawyering, Bad Facts, And Furman's High-Stakes Dilemma, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

Two of the conversations benefitting most from Jack Sammons's scholarship are conversations about legal rhetoric and about virtue ethics. Legal rhetoric is the study of the conventions of legal argument, specifically, the art of identifying and evaluating the best available means of persuasion and implementing those means effectively in light of audience, purpose, and occasion. Virtue ethics approaches moral reflection by asking what sort of person a particular moral choice encourages the actor to become. It focuses on consequences to the moral agent herself rather than directly focusing on consequences to others. The goal is to become a virtuous person, …

Immigration Law’S Looming Fourth Amendment Problem, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

In 2014, a wave of federal court decisions found that local police violate the Fourth Amendment when they rely on requests from the Department of Homeland Security to detain people suspected of being deportable immigrants. The problem with these requests, known as “detainers,” was that they were not based on any neutral finding of probable cause. But this infirmity is not unique to DHS requests to local police. It is characteristic of the normal means by which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests people and detains them at the outset of deportation proceedings. These decisions thus signal a glaring constitutional …

Summary Of Brant V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 97, Jaymes Orr

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court upheld that the exclusion of expert testimony is left to the district court’s wide discretion, except in cases of abuse of its discretion. Expert testimony must be relevant and reliable to be of assistance to the trier of fact. Because Brant could not present scientific or other evidence that his interrogation witness would demonstrate that Brant’s brain injury caused him falsely confess, the district court’s discretion would not be disturbed and the judgment was affirmed.

Summary Of Byars V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 85, Katherine Frank

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) pursuant to Missouri v. McNeely[1], the natural dissipation of marijuana in the blood stream does not constitute a per se exigent circumstance permitting a warrantless blood draw, (2) NRS 484C.160(7)[2], which allows officers to use force to obtain blood samples, violates the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution[3], and (3) when a warrantless blood draw is nonetheless taken in good faith, evidence obtained from the blood draw is admissible at trial.

Summary Of Artiga-Morales V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 77, Janine Lee

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

In the absence of a rule or statute mandating disclosure of jury background information from the prosecution to the defense, no such obligation exists.[1] If policy considerations dictate that defendants should be allowed to see prosecution-developed jury dossiers, then a court rule should be proposed, considered and adopted as implicitly authorized by NRS 179A.100(7)(j). Such a procedure would allow the court to better assess the “scope of disparity, impact on juror privacy interests, the need to protect work product, practicality, and fundamental fairness

than this case, with its limited record and arguments.”

[1] This is the majority opinion. A …

Summary Of Watson V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 76, Lindsay Liddell

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) a Batson objection to peremptory strikes should be analyzed with reference to the amount of allegedly targeted-group members within the venire; and (2) that a jury instruction is not issued in error when there was a reasonable likelihood that the jury did not understand the instruction incorrectly, even if the rule does not comprehensively explain the underlying doctrine, so long as it accurately states the law.

Beyond The Sar-C: Best Practices For Gaming Companies To "Know Their Customer" And Avoid Organizational Money Laundering Liability In The Post-Sands Climate, Joseph Rillotta

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Encouraging Victims: Responding To A Recent Study Of Battered Women Who Commit Crimes, Andrea L. Dennis, Carol E. Jordan

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Brown V. Mcdaniel. 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 60, Allison Vitangeli

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether the ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel may constitute good cause under NRS 34.726(1) and NRS 34.810 to allow a noncapital petitioner to file an untimely and successive post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Summary Of State V. White, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 56, Michael Bowman

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether a person could burglarize his or her own home.

Summary Of Conner V. State Of Nevada, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 49, Kelsey Bernstein

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined three issues: 1) whether, despite there being sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction, the conviction may stand where the State engages in discriminatory jury selection; 2) how a convicted defendant may sufficiently demonstrate that it is more likely than not that the State engaged in purposeful discrimination; and 3) the responsibilities of the district court when ruling on a Batson objection.

Summary Of Harris V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 47, Danielle Barraza

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether a motion to withdraw a guilty plea filed after the judgment of conviction is a remedy that is “incident to the proceedings in the trial court.”

Summary Of All Star Bail Bonds, Inc. V. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 45, Sean Daly

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

A defendant who left the country voluntarily, but was denied admission upon returning to the country, is considered “excluded,” not “deported,” for purposes of NRS 178.509(1)(b)(5). Furthermore, a district court may not exonerate a bond without a statutory basis for doing so.

The Expanding Use Of Genetic And Psychological Evidence: Finding Coherence In The Criminal Law? , Michael Vitiello

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Gomez V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 43, Laura Guidry

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined two issues: 1) whether the district court properly relied on the incident reports when determining whether to amend the PSI 2) whether a defendant is entitled to due process protections when erroneous statements in his or her PSI will potentially affect his or her prison classification and compromise whether he or she will be released on parole.

Summary Of Sasser V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 41, Jeffrey Pike

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined three issues: 1) whether a district court can amend a presentence investigation report (PSI) in the judgment of conviction rather than amending the PSI itself; 2) whether the district court properly declined to strike information from the PSI; and 3) whether the district court relied on impalpable or highly suspect evidence when sentencing the defendant.

Summary Of Afzali V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 34, Sean Daly

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether a defendant has a constitutional right to know the racial composition of a grand jury that indicted him.

Summary Of Lachance V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 29, Brian Vasek

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether (1) the sufficiency of the evidence supported the defendant’s domestic battery by strangulation and domestic battery causing substantial bodily harm convictions; (2) the convictions and sentences for possession with intent to sell and simple possession based on possession of the same controlled substance violates the Double Jeopardy Clause; (3) the defendant received adequate notice of the State’s intent to seek habitual criminal status; and (4) the district court properly adjudicated the defendant as a habitual criminal.

Summary Of Coleman V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 22, Kylee Gloeckner

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether a person who is serving a sentence of lifetime supervision may challenge that sentence by filing a post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Summary written by Kylee Gloeckner.

Summary Of Davis V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 16, Danielle Barraza

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court clarified two issues: [1] whether battery is justifiable in self-defense under the same conditions that would justify homicide, and [2] when proposed jury instructions should be accepted by the trial court regarding justifiable battery.

Harmelin's Faulty Originalism, Michael J. Zydney Mannheimer

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Turning Restitution Upside-Down: The Mortgage Fraud Restitution Formula Amidst Volatile Housing Prices, Nicole Scott

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Sanchez-Dominguez V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 10, Brady Briggs

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined two issues: (1) whether the felony murder rule applies to killings which occur only after all of the elements of the underlying felony are complete, and (2) whether the felony murder rule requires that a killing be caused by the commission of the underlying felony.