- law dawg
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- Nevada will still accept mail ballots post-Election Day after US Supreme Court ruling. [TNI; RJ]
- Here’s more on Nevada’s “new” dedicated business court. [This is Reno; NV Current]
- Reno judge orders Rupert Murdoch court documents be prepared for release to the public. [RJ]
- Retired Metro fingerprint expert pens true crime book. [RJ]
- Lawsuit alleges North Las Vegas jail denied woman seizure meds, used excessive force. [RJ]
- Nevada prisons struggle to address inmates’ medical needs. [TNI]
- Nevada charges inmates to make phone calls. Maybe it shouldn’t. [NV Current]
- Limits on cellphones in classrooms, path for foreign-trained doctors among new laws taking effect. [NV Current]
- Opinion: Dayvid Figler says “Protest this column!” [TNI]
First
I appreciate and support rehabilitation programs for incarcerated individuals and agree that preparing inmates to successfully matriculate back into society should be a priority. I can appreciate that family and community connections are beneficial to inmates’ psychologically and emotional well-being.
However, I believe an important question must be addressed before implementing a system of completely free phone calls for all inmates: How would the correctional system prevent abuse or corruption of unlimited free communications (even if it is 20 minutes per inmate per day)?
For example, what safeguards would be in place to prevent inmates from using free phone privileges to harass victims or witnesses, engage in criminal enterprises, conduct fraud schemes, intimidate others, or misuse the system in other inappropriate ways? Additionally, how would correctional facilities manage excessive use of limited phone resources to ensure that all inmates have fair access?
While I support expanding affordable communication opportunities and reducing unnecessary financial burdens on families, any policy providing free communication should also include appropriate oversight, monitoring, reasonable limitations, and accountability measures to ensure that the system is not abused and that institutional safety and public safety remain protected.
I believe that striking a balance between encouraging rehabilitation and maintaining the security and integrity of our correctional institutions is imperative.
Aren’t all calls from the jails/prisons recorded?
Yes, except for legal calls to a registered number.
Do you mean calls to an attorney?
What safeguards are in place now to prevent inmates from using free phone privileges to harass victims or witnesses, engage in criminal enterprises, conduct fraud schemes, intimidate others, or misuse the system in other inappropriate ways? None of those issues would be exacerbated by a change in whether calls are free or charged. There is already appropriate oversight, monitoring, reasonable limitations, and accountability measures to ensure that the system is not abused and that institutional safety and public safety remain protected.
Phone resources are a limited commodity today so that is an issue that would result in expanded phone resources being necessary.
The exact same safeguards that are in place now. Also, people that inmates call, must ACCEPT the call every time it comes through. This may in fact be the greatest safeguard against the things you suggest.
Unlimited phone calls could be a boon. The only reason that NDOC and other systems place limitations (Fed BOP is 15 minutes per call and 300 minutes per month, 400 in November and December and the phones are locked down after certain time periods at night).
Finally, the only reason for these limitations is to deter inmates from using the phones to the exclusion of other inmates.
What safeguards do we have in place to prevent prisoners from using state-issued tablets to attend community college classes and harass on-campus students?
Tablets are state issued, true, but at the direct expense of the inmate for both the cost of the tablet and the messaging used ON the tablet.
clearly you missed the Community reference. but good to know!
Did you really write this? Or did you ask AI to come up with arguments against free phone calls and it presented this drivel? Private corporations should not be making huge profits off of families who are already suffering because a family member is incarcerated. It’s not fair to elderly parents, young children, struggling spouses, etc. The current system benefits corporations at the expense of people. That is not striking a balance. That is beating up on people who are already down in order to line the pockets of the oligarchs.
Was anyone shocked at how few inmates we have in Nevada and the huge decline? Or is that chart on the article just completely incorrect?
The decline was inevitable, with all of the inmates being KII (killed while incarcerated), either from inmate violence or from the abhorrent medical care.
2020 ushered in the era of the Judicial Public Defender, probation reform, and the Valdez-Jimenez decision on bail. Suddenly there’s a seismic shift in the number of inmates being released after arrest, a equally large number of defendants being placed on probation, and substantial roadblocks to revoking that probation ince granted. It’s no surprise that the numbers of inmates declined after that three-punch combo.
Also, crime is just way, way down compared to the past.
“If we just stop testing, the cases will go way, way down!”
People just go crazy when you point out the reality that crime is down. Do you really think that every police department in the country is cooking the books? And not just cooking the books in terms of the amount of crime but the trend of crime (meaning that they were making up artificially high crime 5 years ago and now are making up artificially low crime now)? Or is Las Vegas is the only place in the country where crime isn’t declining? What’s your explanation for homicides declining 25% since 2018? LVMPD is hiding the bodies?
Controversial opinion, but homicides aren’t the only type of crime out there. Plus back to the original comment in this thread, the number of inmates is disproportionately smaller than the current crime levels would suggest it should be based on historical data. All things being equal, a 5% total crime rate reduction should lead to a 5% decrease in inmate populations but that’s not what we’re seeing.
This is 1:40/3:25. First, I never said homicides are the only type of crime. Crime is down across the board across the country. But homicides is where the “crime is down because police stopped doing their jobs” argument is the silliest.
Second, I never said crime going down is the entire explanation for the drop. But it’s part of the story. It’s just the part of the story that, for reasons I don’t understand, people absolutely refuse to believe. They’d prefer that there be a nationwide conspiracy of police departments colluding to fabricate data than believe that in this one way things have improved in the last 20 years.
Crime is down? This is because it is too frustrating to report anything. Try calling 911–they drop you, say it is not an emergency and to call 311. Call 311 you are on hold forever and then they say come down and file a report. My car is stolen–file a report. My house was broken into–fill out a report. It is such a hassle. It is so tough that folks prefer not to bother.
Amen. The number of crimes that are going unreported or uninvestigated here is staggering. Sit back for a second and imagine you’re living somewhere like Boise or Topeka or Juneau. Someone’s car gets stolen, that’s newsworthy. Business gets burglarized? Sunday paper, front page. Murder? Generational tragedy, whole town is devastated. Those things happen here every single day, all day long, and it barely even registers. We keep it all quiet so tourists keep walking the Strip and buying yard-long margaritas with the money they shoud’ve been spending on a new HVAC unit.
Anyone hear about the RJC closing for a bomb threat?
Just heard this
It was more of a bomb suggestion.
Exactly. How can anyone tell a suspicious package from the other mountains of trash left behind by the homeless? Looked like it was the judicial parking lot. So maybe they cared more. I’ll bet if it was on that city lot across the street they wouldn’t have done anything.
It’s totally unfair if a defendant is accepted to drug court for the sentencing judge to sentence him to prison instead of probation with drug court. Setting aside this guy had 3 prior felonies and a ton of misdemeanor convictions. If the deal is for no opposition to probation with drug court then court should give him that.
Sounds like judicial discretion. How dare those pesky judges exercise it and make decisions as they see appropriate… Sorry your client went to prison.
Aw, did someone’s fourth strike end in unfavorable consequences? Not too long ago a fourth felony on top of a “ton” of misdemeanor convictions would’ve been looked at harshly.
Why would a third party be bound to your client’s agreement with the prosecutor? I’m sick of seeing repeat offenders get no jail time.
We all are. But then voters go and elect people to the bench who think all crime is made up and nobody’s ever done anything wrong, so here we are.
So Hardy and Gall is it for business cases going forward. Hardy is asleep at the wheel it seems. I’ve sat in his courtroom and he seems completely lost. Good thing he’s a judge because he’d never make it as a practitioner. Gall’s CV looks promising – maybe not all is lost.
actually, Joe was a good lawyer
For everything there is a season
Hardy had business court cases and they were removed from him. The decline in quality of our bench has meant that he has gone from not good enough, to the best of bad options.
Gall is fantastic. Maybe the best judge we’ve got.
Yeah. And she follows the law. Exactly why the NJA wanted her removed from tort cases.
Re: Figler & Protests
“[R]estraint [by police] would be nice.”
Easy. Don’t riot. Go home when told. There should be zero tolerance once the warning is issued.
Except the protesters are being told to go home when they should not have to go home, when they have done nothing that would require them to go home. It is effectively, “Don’t show up. Stay home.”
A dedicated business court to make Nevada a corporate-litigation hub, and not a soul has mentioned that high-asset divorces ARE business disputes – closely-held entity valuation, goodwill, the works. Where do they think that analysis got perfected? Family court. We have been valuing enterprises (AV-rated preeminent before most of these new business-court judges took the bar) for decades. The fee burn on contested enterprise-goodwill litigation runs into six figures, and any competent practitioner should be calculating what these unprepared docket times will cost clients.
Family courts handling a lot of NRS Chapters 78-92A, UCC, and business tort claims, are they? Dare I say the only business court claims family courts touch would be claims arising from the purchase or sale of the stock of a business or all or substantially all of the assets of a business. Indeed, don’t the rules expressly exclude cases within the jurisdiction of family court from business courts?
This is either really good satire or 1:42’s ego has the gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole.