ADKT 0612 is a set of proposed amendments to the Eighth Judicial District Court Rules including creation of Professional Negligence/Medical Malpractice court. [NV Bar]
Judge Cristina Silva dismissed a lawsuit (with leave to file an amended complaint) filed by Sigal Chattah challenging election worker protection bill. [TNI; RJ]
City of Las Vegas proposes tough regulations on sidewalk vendors. [Nevada Current]
Teens facing murder charges laugh, gesture at family in court. [RJ; KTNV]
Teacher gets $150K in lawsuit settlement with CCSD. [RJ]
Delays in competency treatment lead to hefty state fines. [RJ]
CCSD refuses to release records on student gun arrests. [8NewsNow]
The Las Vegas Stadium Authority will meet today for first time on A’s ballpark and will consider whether to retain Brownstein Hyatt. [News3LV]
I will sleep soundly tonight knowing that they will both become someone's prison wife for the foreseeable future. We'll see how tough they are after that.
Guest
Anonymous
October 25, 2023 5:11 pm
Completely agree. Those two hoodlums are a menace to society. They should never been allowed release for the rest of their lives. Death penalty would be appropriate, but unfort will not happen.
10:12-It's a very narrow, highly specialized area requiring real skill, sophisticated knowledge and expertise, etc.
A very, very tiny percentage of civil cases filed in our county are med. mal. cases, and chances are quite good that an attorney elected or appointed to the RJC bench has no meaningful experience in this area-and that is true of attorneys who were mainly civil attorneys.
I consider it one of those areas that you can never be a really effective judge at if you never handled such a case in practice.
I was down at ARM a couple of weeks ago, loading up on the free lunch. I looked around at all the mediators in the room – Gonzalez, Barker, Jones, Atkin, etc. All of the good judges have left the bench and are making bank at ARM. One of them commented that there's an informal wait list of sitting judges who want to move over to ARM.
The public probably doesn't care, but if we want talent on the bench, judges need to be paid $350k. The typical attorney in town with 10 years experience (which you have to have to be a judge) makes more than judges do. Other than ego, why go through all the debasing hassle of a campaign to make less money?
That's why the bench is full of career prosecutors and public defenders–it's a pay and prestige raise for them, but would be a downgrade and pay cut for virtually any other attorneys in town.
There are great candidates that don’t want to be anonymously heckled by keyboard warriors.
Guest
Anonymous
October 25, 2023 5:13 pm
Did anyone really expect them to act any differently? Look at all the prominent hit and runs that have led to death in the community that has made the news. Their false bravado didn't appear out of thin air.
I learned not to laugh as follows. In a custody hearing, my paralegal handed me a water (warm) and I laughed very lowly (hey get me a cold one). The client was angry "So you think this is funny!" I learned my lesson. (I didn't say this was a great story just the moral – don't laugh ever).
Completely misleading. He has clients who are 18 years of age facing life in prison. I think Ayala is a monster, but Westbrook does not and in fact has a duty to humanize his client. Odds that he was laughing at the victim's family are virtually zero.
Let's not assume that Westbrook does not share our view that the defendants are monsters.
I suppose it could be argued that if one spends their legal career as a PD or a crim. defense attorney in private practice, that one could become somewhat desensitized, etc.
But it's important not to make too much of that point. Over the decades I have known quite a few attorneys who represented some of Clark County's most repugnant of criminal defendants, and they seemed to hold these people in no higher regard that you or I would, and found them to be just as despicable.
But the attorneys simply have to compartmentalize, and not let such emotions unduly affect the representation they provide.
Now, true that this is a horrific fact pattern, wherein it is difficult to conjure up something more tragic and loathsome.
But for those of us who lived here for a number of years, a few cases spring to mind which are beyond shocking in their senseless, sadistic depravity:
The brother/sister duo(the Maestos, or something similar may have been their name) who, apparently after getting burned in a minor drug purchase, exact their revenge by chopping up the other parties two little girls.
Jerry Strohmeyer who senselessly butchered that 7-year-old little girl in the bathroom in a casino at stateline.
I'll stop now before I get too depressed remembering additional such tragedies.
Hey, 5:32, thanks but no thanks for reminding us of Beau and Monique Maestos, and Jeremy Stohmeyer.
Those cases are horrific beyond belief in that it is hard to envision anything more depraved and sadistic than the torture deaths of children.
Some other Clark County murders are among our most horrific due to the mass carnage involved. The October 1 shootings is an obvious one, and seemed to have such a pervasive effect. Most people either knew a victim of the shooting, or know someone well who lost a family member from it.
Although not remotely on that carnage level, Zane Floyd walked into an Albertson's in '99, opened fire and killed a few dozen people, if memory serves.
So, we have had our share of Clark County cases which shock us to our core.
Strohmeyer (may he burn in hell) in 1997.
Zane Floyd 1999
Kristin Lobato case (even though it wasn't actually her) 2001
The Maestas siblings, 2003.
Stanley and Colleen Rimer, convicted of the death of their disabled 4 year old in a hot car and neglect of most of the rest of their kids.
Javier Righetti (rape, murder, and burning of Alyssa Otrembo) 2011
The Millers (Officers Beck and Soldo, and Joseph Wilcox) 2014
October 1 Asshole, 2017.
2017 Murder suicide of a family, including 11-month son.
Box Truck vs. 9 bicyclists, 2020
These are just a few of the ones I remember that keep me up at night.
It's changed a lot through the years, at least since the district court moved to the RJC. In the old building, the attorneys had free access to the judges' chambers and there was more personal interaction with the JEA, lawclerks and staff.
1:08-And it's far worse at Family Court as they not only merely deal with some difficult, demanding attorneys, but they constantly deal all day with pro per litigants.
Guest
Anonymous
October 25, 2023 8:37 pm
Anyone else having issues accessing PACER today? I keep getting a "this page isn't working" link after I log in.
Guest
Anonymous
October 25, 2023 10:29 pm
Ok…let’s leave a bunch of comments up about executing juveniles and endorsing prison rape of young men, but I can’t comment on the fact that OBC actively persecutes politicians of one party and not the other? That seems legit.
3:56 not op but ur comments fb retarded. So heinous rape comments ok bc on topic but valid off topic not hahaha please let u be my next opposing counsel
It's their blog, they need not afford us any "right" to post, and they can unilaterally remove whatever they want.
A lot of people who get upset that their comment was removed always point to some more offensive comments which were not removed. And that may very well be the case, but how is that the point. The blog operators can exercise their discretion as they see fit. If we don't like it, there are thousands of other places someone can post their remarks.
I think a lot of the complainers are non-lawyers. A lawyer would know better than to assume there is some "free speech" right guaranteed to them by a private party, non-governmental, operation. And what is even more clueless, is to assume this private entity must be dictated by our subjective opinion of which comments are worse than others, and that they better not remove a comment while leaving a possibly more offensive comment still posted.
@3:56 OP here. Scroll up. See the 2nd topic. That’s what my comment was referencing. Thank you for contributing exactly nothing to today’s discourse.
I get frustrated when certain comments get taken down because they are right in the strike zone. And then I remember that this is not my blog. I do not have to take the time to moderate it. There are actual humans moderating it as opposed to algorithms, and they get it right more than they get it wrong.
We are lawyers. Judges sustain stupid, groundless objections all of the time. So we simply rephrase and can pretty much say what needs to be said.
Well said, 9:44 AM. The perpetual whining and persecution complex of some serial thwackees is grating and obnoxious. I've been thwacked. I just move on with my day.
Ingrates. This site is a fun place to visit and the folks who keep it going aren't getting paid for it. The complainers should pause and think about that, maybe even say thank you once in a while!
@ 3:29 that's not why I thwacked your comment yesterday, you big baby. You called a certain individual "incompetent". How about next time you want to arguably defame someone, you post using your name so you can get sued directly instead of hiding behind this blawg?
Opinions expressed are protected by antiSLAPP laws. You could sac up and not let the fear of incompetent attorneys being called incompetent make your blog boring. Scaredy cat.
Just so I'm clear on the plan, we're supposed to let the arguably defamatory comments from anonymous posters stay up on our blawg, and if WE get sued, we're supposed to retain counsel and pay them to defend the anonymous commentors, and then if we happen to win the litigation, we can try to collect our attorneys fees back from whomever sued us over the comments we did not make? Does that sound about right? Brilliant idea! I can't believe I didn't come up with this first!
Thwack away, law.dawg. It's your bank account that takes a hit if you need to hire defense counsel, and your bank account that isn't getting fat giving a bunch of attorneys a place to chat anonymously.
Really wish ole' sparky was still a thing. Those kids deserve to fry. No wet sponge.
They will be popular in prison. Young ones are typically in demand.
I will sleep soundly tonight knowing that they will both become someone's prison wife for the foreseeable future. We'll see how tough they are after that.
Completely agree. Those two hoodlums are a menace to society. They should never been allowed release for the rest of their lives. Death penalty would be appropriate, but unfort will not happen.
What these young boys will get in prison may cause them to actually pray for the death penalty.
And what is that? They are cop killers, just a large a chance they are superstars.
You're all missing the point, it's because they are young they will get abused mostly
Really wish there’d be a better selection of judges on the med mal bench. It’s really awful and the slimmest of pickings.
10:12-It's a very narrow, highly specialized area requiring real skill, sophisticated knowledge and expertise, etc.
A very, very tiny percentage of civil cases filed in our county are med. mal. cases, and chances are quite good that an attorney elected or appointed to the RJC bench has no meaningful experience in this area-and that is true of attorneys who were mainly civil attorneys.
I consider it one of those areas that you can never be a really effective judge at if you never handled such a case in practice.
Considering that most of the class of 2020 judges have never tried a case, the pickins are even slimmer.
I was down at ARM a couple of weeks ago, loading up on the free lunch. I looked around at all the mediators in the room – Gonzalez, Barker, Jones, Atkin, etc. All of the good judges have left the bench and are making bank at ARM. One of them commented that there's an informal wait list of sitting judges who want to move over to ARM.
The public probably doesn't care, but if we want talent on the bench, judges need to be paid $350k. The typical attorney in town with 10 years experience (which you have to have to be a judge) makes more than judges do. Other than ego, why go through all the debasing hassle of a campaign to make less money?
That's why the bench is full of career prosecutors and public defenders–it's a pay and prestige raise for them, but would be a downgrade and pay cut for virtually any other attorneys in town.
There are great candidates that don’t want to be anonymously heckled by keyboard warriors.
Did anyone really expect them to act any differently? Look at all the prominent hit and runs that have led to death in the community that has made the news. Their false bravado didn't appear out of thin air.
If a genuine remorse didn’t kick in one would think a realization of their situation would.
Very bad look for Attorney David Westbrook.
https://nypost.com/2023/10/25/news/las-vegas-teens-accused-of-killing-andreas-probst-laugh-flip-of-victims-family-during-court-hearing/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=nypost&utm_medium=social
A little bit disturbing.
I learned not to laugh as follows. In a custody hearing, my paralegal handed me a water (warm) and I laughed very lowly (hey get me a cold one). The client was angry "So you think this is funny!" I learned my lesson. (I didn't say this was a great story just the moral – don't laugh ever).
Was he laughing with them? I didn't get that from the article (maybe I missed it). If not, not sure how this reflects on him.
The article is about defendants laughing and it features a close up of photo of him laughing with defendants.
Completely misleading. He has clients who are 18 years of age facing life in prison. I think Ayala is a monster, but Westbrook does not and in fact has a duty to humanize his client. Odds that he was laughing at the victim's family are virtually zero.
Let's not assume that Westbrook does not share our view that the defendants are monsters.
I suppose it could be argued that if one spends their legal career as a PD or a crim. defense attorney in private practice, that one could become somewhat desensitized, etc.
But it's important not to make too much of that point. Over the decades I have known quite a few attorneys who represented some of Clark County's most repugnant of criminal defendants, and they seemed to hold these people in no higher regard that you or I would, and found them to be just as despicable.
But the attorneys simply have to compartmentalize, and not let such emotions unduly affect the representation they provide.
Now, true that this is a horrific fact pattern, wherein it is difficult to conjure up something more tragic and loathsome.
But for those of us who lived here for a number of years, a few cases spring to mind which are beyond shocking in their senseless, sadistic depravity:
The brother/sister duo(the Maestos, or something similar may have been their name) who, apparently after getting burned in a minor drug purchase, exact their revenge by chopping up the other parties two little girls.
Jerry Strohmeyer who senselessly butchered that 7-year-old little girl in the bathroom in a casino at stateline.
I'll stop now before I get too depressed remembering additional such tragedies.
Hey, 5:32, thanks but no thanks for reminding us of Beau and Monique Maestos, and Jeremy Stohmeyer.
Those cases are horrific beyond belief in that it is hard to envision anything more depraved and sadistic than the torture deaths of children.
Some other Clark County murders are among our most horrific due to the mass carnage involved. The October 1 shootings is an obvious one, and seemed to have such a pervasive effect. Most people either knew a victim of the shooting, or know someone well who lost a family member from it.
Although not remotely on that carnage level, Zane Floyd walked into an Albertson's in '99, opened fire and killed a few dozen people, if memory serves.
So, we have had our share of Clark County cases which shock us to our core.
Strohmeyer (may he burn in hell) in 1997.
Zane Floyd 1999
Kristin Lobato case (even though it wasn't actually her) 2001
The Maestas siblings, 2003.
Stanley and Colleen Rimer, convicted of the death of their disabled 4 year old in a hot car and neglect of most of the rest of their kids.
Javier Righetti (rape, murder, and burning of Alyssa Otrembo) 2011
The Millers (Officers Beck and Soldo, and Joseph Wilcox) 2014
October 1 Asshole, 2017.
2017 Murder suicide of a family, including 11-month son.
Box Truck vs. 9 bicyclists, 2020
These are just a few of the ones I remember that keep me up at night.
The Rimer case is truly disturbing. I hope those children are living better lives today than what they had growing up.
https://casetext.com/case/rimer-v-baker-10
Is it just me or are the JEA/law clerks sometimes very frosty?
If I had to deal with attorneys all day, I'd be very frosty a lot of the time
A lot of spillover egos in chambers
It's changed a lot through the years, at least since the district court moved to the RJC. In the old building, the attorneys had free access to the judges' chambers and there was more personal interaction with the JEA, lawclerks and staff.
Which is exactly why Vegas had the reputation it had.
@4:04 – Nothing has changed. They just meet at fancy benefits now.
I am with 3:00. Miss the old days.
1:08-And it's far worse at Family Court as they not only merely deal with some difficult, demanding attorneys, but they constantly deal all day with pro per litigants.
Anyone else having issues accessing PACER today? I keep getting a "this page isn't working" link after I log in.
Ok…let’s leave a bunch of comments up about executing juveniles and endorsing prison rape of young men, but I can’t comment on the fact that OBC actively persecutes politicians of one party and not the other? That seems legit.
Puh-lease.
Simple: those comments are on-topic to today's post, and yours sounded like it wasn't. Hope this helps!
3:56 not op but ur comments fb retarded. So heinous rape comments ok bc on topic but valid off topic not hahaha please let u be my next opposing counsel
It's their blog, they need not afford us any "right" to post, and they can unilaterally remove whatever they want.
A lot of people who get upset that their comment was removed always point to some more offensive comments which were not removed. And that may very well be the case, but how is that the point. The blog operators can exercise their discretion as they see fit. If we don't like it, there are thousands of other places someone can post their remarks.
I think a lot of the complainers are non-lawyers. A lawyer would know better than to assume there is some "free speech" right guaranteed to them by a private party, non-governmental, operation. And what is even more clueless, is to assume this private entity must be dictated by our subjective opinion of which comments are worse than others, and that they better not remove a comment while leaving a possibly more offensive comment still posted.
@3:56 OP here. Scroll up. See the 2nd topic. That’s what my comment was referencing. Thank you for contributing exactly nothing to today’s discourse.
I get frustrated when certain comments get taken down because they are right in the strike zone. And then I remember that this is not my blog. I do not have to take the time to moderate it. There are actual humans moderating it as opposed to algorithms, and they get it right more than they get it wrong.
We are lawyers. Judges sustain stupid, groundless objections all of the time. So we simply rephrase and can pretty much say what needs to be said.
Well said, 9:44 AM. The perpetual whining and persecution complex of some serial thwackees is grating and obnoxious. I've been thwacked. I just move on with my day.
Ingrates. This site is a fun place to visit and the folks who keep it going aren't getting paid for it. The complainers should pause and think about that, maybe even say thank you once in a while!
If it makes you feel any better, I comment anonymously from time to time and even some of my comments have been thwacked.
@ 3:29 that's not why I thwacked your comment yesterday, you big baby. You called a certain individual "incompetent". How about next time you want to arguably defame someone, you post using your name so you can get sued directly instead of hiding behind this blawg?
@9:44 OP here. I don’t disagree with you, but I’m still gonna whine about it.
Fair enough. And I'm going continue doing my best to keep this blawg from being sued into oblivion or run completely and irrevocably into the mud.
Opinions expressed are protected by antiSLAPP laws. You could sac up and not let the fear of incompetent attorneys being called incompetent make your blog boring. Scaredy cat.
Just so I'm clear on the plan, we're supposed to let the arguably defamatory comments from anonymous posters stay up on our blawg, and if WE get sued, we're supposed to retain counsel and pay them to defend the anonymous commentors, and then if we happen to win the litigation, we can try to collect our attorneys fees back from whomever sued us over the comments we did not make? Does that sound about right? Brilliant idea! I can't believe I didn't come up with this first!
@2:42 I like where your head is at. What could go wrong.
Foolproof.
Sincere thank you to law.dawg.
Thwack away, law.dawg. It's your bank account that takes a hit if you need to hire defense counsel, and your bank account that isn't getting fat giving a bunch of attorneys a place to chat anonymously.
Thanks for the love and support, most of y'all!
Still doing happy backflips at the adoption of "thwack" as an actual thing. I love it!
Did Brownstein actually do much work? I know they partnered with another firm that did almost all of the initial work for the Raiders stadium.