Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of willfully endangering a child as a result of child abuse, a gross misdemeanor, and battery by strangulation, a felony. Appellant's defense was parental discipline privilege as to the child abuse charge and self-defense as to the battery charge. Appellant challenged (1) the district court's admission of evidence that Appellant had struck one of his sons in public and that Defendant got into an argument with nursing staff about his son, and (2) the court's admission of testimony from a witness reporting that she also had a heated exchange with Appellant over his disciplining a young boy. Appellant alleged the admission of this evidence violated Nev. Rev. Stat. 48.045's prohibition against using character or prior-bad-act evidence to prove criminal propensity. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) one of the episodes involving one of Defendant's sons was properly admitted to refute Appellant's claim of parental privilege; and (2) the district court abused its discretion in admitting the testimony about the incident involving Appellant's discipline of the young boy, but the error was harmless. View " Newman v. State" on Justia Law

A criminal complaint was filed against Petitioner, and Richard Tannery was appointed to represent Petitioner. A notice of intent to seek an indictment was served by facsimile transmission to Tannery's office. The grand jury ultimately returned an indictment against Petitioner. Petitioner filed a motion to dismiss the indictment for lack of reasonable notice. The district court denied the motion. Petitioner subsequently filed this petition for a writ of mandamus, arguing that the State's facsimile service of the grand jury notice was inadequate. The Supreme Court denied the petition, holding that a facsimile service of a notice of intent to seek an indictment constitutes adequate service under Nev. Rev. Stat. 172.241(2), as section 172.241(2) does not require personal service, and Nev. Rev. Sat. 178.589(1) permits facsimile transmission of motions, notices, and other legal documents where personal service is not required. View "Davis v. Dist. Court" on Justia Law

Appellant pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault in an Alford plea. Before sentencing, John Pacult, a licensed social worker, performed a psychosexual evaluation of Appellant. After conducting a series of assessments, Pacult concluded that Appellant had a high risk to reoffend. Appellant filed a motion to strike the psychosexual evaluation and to order a new psychosexual evaluation and presentence investigation (PSI) report. The district court denied Appellant's motion and sentenced him to prison. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded for the district court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on whether Pacult's evaluation comported with currently accepted standards of assessment. After a hearing, the district court held that Pacult's evaluation was proper. The court then denied Appellant's request for a new psychosexual evaluation and reinstated the judgment of conviction. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the evidence supported the district court's conclusion that the evaluation was based upon currently accepted standards of assessment. View "Blackburn v. State" on Justia Law

The City brought an eminent domain action to acquire a forty-foot-wide strip of real property from Respondent. Respondent's predecessor-in-interest originally acquired title to this property through a federal land patent that reserved a thirty-three-foot-wide easement across the strip of property for "roadway and public utilities purposes." The City asserted that it sought to utilize its existing rights to the thirty-three-foot right-of-way under the federal land patent's easement and to attain, by condemnation, the remaining seven-foot portion of land. The district court granted Respondent partial summary judgment and awarded Respondent $394,490 in compensation, concluding that the City lacked any right to use the easement because the federal patent did not specifically name the City. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the district court erred in (1) determining that the federal land patent did not create a thirty-three-foot-wide easement, as the plain meaning of the patent's language created a valid public easement; (2) determining that the City's proposed use of the easement constituted a taking, as the use of this easement was within its scope and did not strip Respondent of a property interest; and (3) awarding Respondent just compensation and attorney fees. View "City of Las Vegas v. Cliff Shadows Prof'l Plaza, LLC" on Justia Law

In 2003, the Legislature passed the Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area and Adjacent Lands Act (Act), which adopted amendments to Nevada law that prohibited Clark County from rezoning land in certain areas adjacent to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, including 2,500 acres owned by Gypsum Resources, LLC (Gypsum). Gypsum subsequently filed suit against the Attorney General in federal district court, asking the court to enjoin the State from enforcing the Act and claiming that the Act violated portions of the Nevada Constitution. The federal district court granted summary judgment in favor of Gypsum. The district court certified questions regarding the state constitutional issues to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found (1) the Act is a local law that regulates county business, and as such, it violates the portion of the Constitution prohibiting the Legislature from passing local or special laws that regulate county business; (2) the Act violates the section of the Constitution prohibiting a nonuniform system of county government by establishing a nonuniform system of county government; and (3) the Act does not fall within any recognized exception to the Nevada Constitution. View "Attorney Gen. v. Gypsum Res., LLC" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged via criminal complaint with sex offender failure to notify appropriate agencies of change of address. Appellant's counsel filed a motion to dismiss. The State did not file an opposition, and the justice court dismissed the case due to the lack of an opposition. Subsequently, the State obtained an indictment against Appellant for the same offense charged in the criminal complaint. Appellant filed a pretrial petition for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the State willfully failed to comply with important procedural rules and acted with conscious indifference to his procedural rights when it failed to oppose the motion to dismiss. Appellant argued that this conscious indifference barred a subsequent prosecution for the same offense. The district court concluded that the State did not exhibit willful or conscious indifference to Appellant's rights. Thereafter, Appellant was convicted as charged. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the district court erred in denying Appellant' pretrial petition for a writ of habeas corpus, as the State acted with conscious indifference to important procedural rules. View "Woods v. State" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of robbery with the use of a deadly weapon and first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon and was sentenced to death. Appellant subsequently filed numerous post-conviction motions. This appeal involved the denial of Appellant's fourth post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging his conviction and sentence. Appellant's counsel sought to file a substitution of counsel motion under seal. The motion was filed under seal. The State opposed the motion and moved to unseal it. Appellant responded by filing a motion to seal the State's opposition. The Supreme Court denied the State's motion and granted Appellant's motion. The State filed a motion for reconsideration of that order. Appellant then filed a motion to seal the reconsideration motion and any pleadings related to the substitution. Later, Appellant filed a motion to strike the motion for reconsideration and to direct the State's conduct respecting the various pleadings filed regarding the substitution motion. The Supreme Court granted the State's motion for reconsideration and denied Appellant's competing motions, holding that the documents Appellant sought to have sealed did not meet the requirements for sealing. View "Howard v. State" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of burglary, grand larceny, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, first-degree kidnapping, conspiracy to commit murder, and first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon. At issue on appeal was whether the district court erred by dismissing a prospective juror before conducting a Batson hearing, and whether sufficient evidence supported the kidnapping conviction. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded, holding (1) because Defendant asserted a Batson violation, it was a structural error to dismiss the challenged juror prior to conducting the Batson hearing because it showed the district court predetermined the challenge before actually hearing it; and (2) the evidence was sufficient to support the kidnapping conviction. View "Brass v. State" on Justia Law

Respondent pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit a felony under the Uniform Controlled Substances Act. The State later filed a motion requesting that the justice court grant Respondent immunity in exchange for her testimony against another defendant, Gary Taylor, which was granted. Prior to sentencing in her own case, Respondent involuntarily testified at Taylor's preliminary hearing. Respondent then filed motions to dismiss the criminal complaint filed against her and to withdraw her guilty plea, arguing that because the justice court granted her transactional immunity, the State could no longer prosecute her for any actions discussed in her testimony. The district court granted the motions. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Nevada's immunity statutes do confer transactional immunity where a defendant is forced to testify; and (2) the grant of transactional immunity to a defendant in exchange for testimony, even after entering a guilty plea, immunizes a defendant from further prosecution, including sentencing. View "State v. Tricas" on Justia Law

These consolidated appeals presented specific applications of the question of whether a defendant can, in a single trial, be prosecuted and punished cumulatively for a single act that violates more than one criminal statute. Specifically, these appeals presented the following questions: When the elements of both crimes are met, can a defendant who shoots and hits but fails to kill his victim be convicted of and punished for both attempted murder and battery? Also, if the defendant shoots and misses, can he be convicted of and punished for both attempted murder and assault? The Supreme Court affirmed the judgments of conviction in both appeals after repeating the rule that if each statute contains an element that the other does not, then the offenses are different. The Court held that, in this case, Defendants' multiple convictions and punishments for attempted murder, assault, and battery in this case were statutorily authorized and further, did not offend the test set forth in Blockburger v. United States, which licenses multiple punishments unless, analyzed in terms of their elements, one charged offense is the same or a lesser-included offense of the other. View "Jackson v. State" on Justia Law