“Often the argument for solitary is for safety, right? It's to keep the prison safer, to keep society safer,” said Elena Vanko, one of the Vera Institute researchers who worked on the Nevada report. “But there really isn't the evidence to support that solitary ... changes people's behavior or deters misbehavior.”

In a unanimous decision published Thursday, the seven members of the Court ruled in favor of a petitioner, Christopher Anderson, who had appealed charges of battery offense constituting domestic violence on the grounds that he was erroneously denied the right to a jury trial.

The state’s Financial Institutions Division, represented by Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office, recently appealed a lower court’s ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court which found state laws prohibiting the refinancing of high-interest loans don’t necessarily apply to a certain kind of loan offered by Titlemax, a prominent title lender with more than 40 locations in the state. 

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a developmental and behavioral condition that affects more than 10,000 children under the age of 18 in Clark County, making it more prevalent than autism, according to UNLV Medicine Ackerman Autism Center. A panel hosted by Ackerman Autism Center on Monday focused on meeting the challenges of living with FASD.

Nevada’s system of getting packages to prisoners hasn’t always worked smoothly. Prisons had been using a system where inmates walked up to a retail store window and picked up items. But that involved inmates leaving their housing units and standing in line for long periods of time, often in the elements, and alongside rivals who wanted to steal their new stuff.

Attorneys for the Clark County public defender’s office faced off with their counterparts in the Clark County district attorney’s office in Carson City over a pair of consolidated cases that public defenders hope to use set a major precedent and add substantial restrictions on the use of cash bail for pretrial detention.

An opinion authored by a three-member panel composed of Justices Kristina Pickering, Mark Gibbons and James Hardesty last week reversed a lower court’s conviction of Ian Andre Hager, a Reno man convicted of violating a state law that prohibits individuals adjudicated as mentally ill or are found to be unlawfully using illegal drugs from possessing firearms.

The North Las Vegas City Council on Tuesday voted, as part of its consent agenda, to allow City Manager Ryann Juden to develop a contract with Dzurenda’s newly formed consulting company to the tune of $150,000. 

According to documents shared with The Nevada Independent, attorneys in the Clark County public defender’s office have drafted a plan to begin filing motions in criminal cases seeking similar treatment offered to Nicholas by Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson’s office.

An otherwise unremarkable criminal case against 58-year-old Jose Valdez-Jimenez, accused of stealing thousands of dollars of merchandise from multiple Victoria’s Secret stores in Las Vegas last year, could be the catalyst for a radical shift in Nevada’s system of allowing judges to require cash bail be posted before a defendant in a criminal case is released prior to the start of a trial. 

During the first week of operation, 16 inmates at High Desert State Prison sorted, cleaned, and repackaged 2,400 hangers, earning a wage based on productivity. Production is eventually expected to ramp up to 9,000 hangers per week. 

The overall grant, which the state applied for under the administration of then-Attorney General Adam Laxalt, drew criticism from lawmakers at a meeting earlier this summer who said it seemed to be linking unaccompanied, asylum-seeking minors with crime.

One of the faces at the forefront of efforts against human trafficking is Nick Trutanich, U.S. attorney for the District of Nevada, whose office is tasked with investigating such cases. The Nevada Independent caught up with Trutanich at the seminar to discuss the challenges of those prosecutions, as well as his office’s priorities on marijuana enforcement and public corruption cases.

In dismissing the original complaint in December 2017, Nevada-based federal Judge Robert C. Jones wrote that Espinosa had failed to say how his Humanist beliefs were distinct from secular moral philosophy to the point that they would qualify as a religion.

An analysis from the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center (CLC) found that the majority of states require a person to pay their legal financial obligations — including restitution to victims, fines and fees to agencies involved in their prosecution — in order to regain their right to vote. The fees can take years to pay off — or be nearly impossible to pay.

The governor’s office and the corrections agency jointly announced Dzurenda’s departure on Friday, saying that he was leaving to pursue new opportunities and spend more time with his family and children in Southern Nevada. The effective date of his resignation is expected to be announced in the near future, officials said.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered former Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson to serve 27 months in prison and pay $249,900 in restitution for his misuse of campaign funds.

Clark County commissioners raised concerns about a renewed collaboration between the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), saying they’ve been unable to get information about how the so-called 287(g) agreement is being carried out in the county jail.