Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The appellant, Barry Rashad Harris, was convicted of first-degree kidnapping resulting in substantial bodily harm, battery constituting domestic violence, misdemeanor assault, and battery resulting in substantial bodily harm constituting domestic violence, following a physical altercation with his girlfriend. He was sentenced to an aggregate term of 15 years to life. Harris filed a pro se petition for a postconviction writ of habeas corpus, alleging ineffective assistance of pretrial, trial, and appellate counsel. The district court appointed postconviction counsel, who supplemented the petition with additional claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court set the matter for an evidentiary hearing.Due to a communication error, Harris, who was incarcerated, was not transported to attend the hearing. The district court proceeded with the hearing in Harris's absence, without a waiver from him of his statutory right to be present. The district court concluded that Harris had not shown ineffective assistance of counsel and denied the petition.The Supreme Court of Nevada found that the district court violated Harris's statutory right to be present at the hearing. The court clarified that counsel may not waive a petitioner’s right to be present at an evidentiary hearing on a postconviction habeas petition where the record does not indicate that the petitioner personally waived the right to be present. Because the record did not support a valid waiver of the statutory right to be present at the evidentiary hearing, the court concluded that the district court violated Harris’s statutory right to be present at the hearing. The court could not say that this error was harmless given the circumstances presented, and therefore reversed the district court’s order and remanded for a new evidentiary hearing. View "Harris v. Warden" on Justia Law

The case involves Jesse Calvin Gilbert, who was pulled over by a law enforcement deputy due to a non-operating license plate light. Gilbert was arrested on an active warrant, and the deputy conducted a warrantless search of the vehicle. During the search, the deputy found a handgun under the driver's seat. Gilbert, an ex-felon, was charged with possession of a firearm and moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the search was not a true inventory search but a ruse to conduct an investigatory search.The district court denied Gilbert's motion, finding that the deputy appropriately impounded the vehicle and the inventory search was reasonable. Gilbert appealed his subsequent conviction based on the search and the unsuppressed evidence.The Supreme Court of Nevada affirmed the district court's decision. The court clarified that an investigatory motive does not necessarily invalidate an inventory search as long as the search that occurred is the same as the inventory-based search that would have happened absent any such motivation. The court also stated that a court deciding a suppression motion must determine the search's reasonableness under the totality of the circumstances by evaluating the extent to which law enforcement departed from the standardized procedures, whether the scope of the search was as expected in light of the underlying justifications for inventory searches, and whether the inventory produced served the purposes of an inventory search. The court concluded that the search was reasonable and denied Gilbert's motion to suppress. View "GILBERT VS. STATE" on Justia Law

In the case before the Supreme Court of the State of Nevada, the plaintiff, Steve Wynn, a prominent figure in Nevada gaming and politics, filed a defamation claim against the defendants, The Associated Press and its reporter, Regina Garcia Cano. The claim arose from an article that reported on two separate citizens' complaints alleging sexual assault by Wynn in the 1970s. The defendants responded with a special motion to dismiss the claim under Nevada's anti-SLAPP statutes, which aim to protect the right to free speech and prevent meritless lawsuits intended to chill the exercise of these rights.The district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, finding that the article was a good faith communication in furtherance of the right to free speech in connection with an issue of public concern and that Wynn failed to establish a probability of prevailing on the merits of his claim. Wynn appealed this decision, arguing that the district court erred in its analysis under the two-prong anti-SLAPP framework.The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's decision. Under the first prong of the anti-SLAPP analysis, the court found that the defendants had established, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the claim was based on a good faith communication in furtherance of the right to free speech in direct connection with an issue of public concern.Under the second prong, the court clarified that a public figure defamation plaintiff must provide sufficient evidence for a jury, by clear and convincing evidence, to reasonably infer that the publication was made with actual malice. In this case, the court determined that Wynn failed to meet this burden. Hence, he could not establish with prima facie evidence a probability of prevailing on his claim, leading to the affirmation of the district court's order granting the defendants' special motion to dismiss the complaint. View "Wynn v. The Associated Press" on Justia Law

In the State of Nevada, Alexander M. Falconi, operating as the press organization Our Nevada Judges, petitioned against the Eighth Judicial District Court, the Honorable Charles J. Hoskin, District Judge, and parties in interest, Troy A. Minter and Jennifer R. Easler. Falconi challenged local rules and a statute that required certain court proceedings to be closed to the public.Falconi filed a media request for camera access in a child custody proceeding between Minter and Easler. Minter opposed the request, arguing it was not in the child's best interest to have his personal information publicly available. The district court denied Falconi's request, citing that the case was sealed and thus required to be private according to local rules.The Supreme Court of the State of Nevada held that the public has a constitutional right to access court proceedings. The local rules and the statute, NRS 125.080, requiring the district court to close proceedings, bypassed the exercise of judicial discretion and were not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest. Thus, the court held that these local rules and NRS 125.080 were unconstitutional to the extent they permitted closed family court proceedings without exercising judicial discretion.The court instructed the district court to reverse its order denying media access in the underlying child custody case. The court emphasized the importance of public access to court proceedings, including family court proceedings, which historically have been open to the public. The court rejected the automatic closure of such proceedings and emphasized the necessity of case-by-case judicial discretion in deciding whether to close proceedings. View "Falconi v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct." on Justia Law

In this case, the Supreme Court of the State of Nevada considered whether the Nevada State Engineer had the authority to combine multiple existing hydrographic basins into one "superbasin" for the purposes of water administration and management based on a shared source of water. The State Engineer had combined seven basins into one superbasin, the Lower White River Flow System (LWRFS), after determining that the waters of these basins were interconnected such that withdrawals from one basin affected the amount of water in the other basins. The State Engineer also found that the previously granted appropriations of water exceeded the rate of recharge in the LWRFS. Various entities who owned water rights throughout the new superbasin challenged the State Engineer's decision, claiming that he lacked the authority to manage surface waters and groundwater jointly and that his decision violated their due process rights.The Supreme Court of the State of Nevada held that the State Engineer indeed had the authority to manage surface waters and groundwater conjunctively and to jointly administer multiple basins. The court also found that the State Engineer did not violate the rights holders' due process rights because they received notice and had an opportunity to be heard. The court reversed the lower court's decision that had granted the rights holders' petitions for judicial review and remanded the matter back to the lower court for further proceedings to determine whether substantial evidence supported the State Engineer's factual determinations. View "Sullivan v. Lincoln County Water District" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the order of the district court dismissing Appellant's complaint alleging that Nev. Rev. Stat. 176.355, Nevada's statute providing that an execution must be effectuated by injection of a lethal drug, is unconstitutional because it gives the Director of the Nevada Department of Corrections discretion to determine the process by which a lethal injection is administered, holding that there was no error.Appellant, a death-row inmate, argued that section 176.355 lacked suitable standards because it afforded the Director complete discretion to determine the types, dosages, and sequencing of drugs to be used in the execution. The district court dismissed the challenge. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the statute, combined with the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, provided the Director with suitable standards to determine the process by which a lethal injection is to be administered. View "Floyd v. State, Dep't of Correction" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the district court accepting Appellant's plea of no contest to two counts of attempted lewdness with a child and imposed the special condition of probation mandated by Nev. Rev. Stat. 176A.410(1)(q), holding subsection (q) is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.Upon accepting Appellant's no contest plea the district court placed him on probation and imposed the special condition mandated by subsection (q), which prohibits a defendant on probation for a sexual offense from accessing the internet without his probation officer's permission. On appeal, Appellant argued that the mandatory internet ban failed intermediate scrutiny under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment as to the mandatory internet ban and otherwise affirmed, holding that because Nev. Rev. Stat. 176A.410(1)(q) is both mandatory and restricts more speech than necessary to serve the government's interest with no tailoring mechanism it is facially unconstitutional. View "Aldape v. State" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the district court granting Defendant's motion to dismiss the charge against him for violation of his due process rights, holding that Defendant's due process rights were violated, but the district court abused its discretion in granting the extreme remedy of dismissal under the facts of this case.After Defendant was charged with sexual assault the district court found him to be incompetent to stand trial and ordered him remanded to a psychiatric hospital for competency restoration treatment. After a delay of over 160 days during which he remained in jail, Defendant was transferred to the hospital. Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that his continued detention in jail violated his due process rights. The district court granted the motion to dismiss. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) this Court's precedent did not support the district court's conclusion that aggravated circumstances warranted dismissing the complaint against Defendant with prejudice; and (2) the district court neglected to balance the deterrent objectives of dismissal against society's interest in prosecuting criminal acts. View "State v. Gonzalez" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the district court denying Appellants' return-of-property motion and Appellants' request to quash and unseal search warrants, holding that Nevada's return-of-property statute, Nev. Rev. Stat. 179.085, allows a property owner to seek the return of privileged materials that were seized pursuant to a valid search warrant even when the government has an ongoing investigation.Appellants moved under section 179.085 for the return of the various documents and electronic devices seized at Appellants' business establishments on the basis that the property contained privileged materials. Appellant also sought to quash and unseal the warrants. The district court denied the motion, determining that it was not unreasonable for LVMPD to retain the property during an ongoing investigation and that the search protocol proposed by LVMPD was a reasonable resolution of the privilege issue. The Supreme Court reversed in part, holding that the district court (1) properly denied Appellants' request to quash and unseal the warrants; (2) erred when it denied Appellants' return-of-property motion without giving Appellants an opportunity to demonstrate privilege; and (3) erred by adopting LVMPD's proposed search protocol. View "In re Search Warrants re Seizure of Documents" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court denying the proposed schedule of June, an adult protected person, in this appeal challenging the court's rulings concerning June's ability to manage familial relationships, holding that there was insufficient evidentiary support for June's schedule.Also at issue in this case was the process for removing June's guardian and appointing a successor guardian and June's standing to challenge certain issues on appeal. The Supreme Court held (1) June had standing to challenge on appeal both the removal or her guardian and the appointment of the successor guardian; (2) the district court has authority to remove a guardian and appoint a successor guardian with the filing of a formal, written petition for removal, and a protected person is entitled to prior notice of and opportunity to be heard on such actions; (3) the district court did not improperly remove June's guardian and appoint a successor guardian, and June was afforded adequate due process; and (4) although the district court erred by improperly shifting the burden to June to file a communication and visitation petition under Nev. Rev. Stat. 159.332-.338, the court properly denied June's proposed schedule. View "In re Guardianship of Jones" on Justia Law