- Quickdraw McLaw
- 48 Comments
- 399 Views
- Clark County D.A. Steve Wolfson seeks the death penalty more than nearly any other. [The Appeal]
- The D.A.’s office will not file charges against the four Metro officers involved in the death of Jorge Gomez. [RJ]
- Prominent Nevada legal figures launch Innocence Center of Nevada. [RJ]
- Metro explains why it can’t investigate sex assault allegations against rapper T.I. [News3LV]
The Innocence Project aka the Nevada Supreme Court lets everyone off, dui murderers and pedophiles.
Essentially, then, doesn't every court, DA and police department? And don't the defense attorneys who get them off on technicalities deserve the same scorn? For even just representing them, but also for pursuing the technicality to the point they are released?
Of course – what do you expect when the police are ALWAYS at fault, the Def had a bad childhood, somebody sometime said the N word or called the D fat. You don't understand – it's just not the D's fault.
I agree with 10:10. I am a lawyer. I guess I am Q'Anon, too according to you. I believe the guilty should be held responsible for their actions.
11:15 the fact that you claim to be a lawyer and then actually typed out the rest of that comment tells me you're either not a lawyer or, if you are, you're just trolling. Get back to work.
11:18, why are you such a troll? You must not be a lawyer to have so much free time to gaslight people.
Do you even criminal law bro? If you think today's NSC is some cuddlefest of defendant love I have some overpriced bitcoin to sell you.
I will take some bitcoin to financially support Stiglich for her liberal tendencies like yesterday's ruling.
Had the same reactions 11:18–some of these posts cannot possibly be made by actual lawyers.
The most glaring example of the bunch is 10:24. There is no f*****g way someone is an attorney when they fall back on a variation of the nonsensical and childish cliché that the system sucks because criminals are permitted to plead Murder One down to Jay Walking.
Also, someone is not a lawyer when they insist plea bargaining is scummy, unethical and should be eliminated–all of which ignores the fact that the system would collapse in 15 minutes if plea negotiation was eliminated as well over 99% of cases in most jurisdictions are resolved by negotiated resolution.
And this approach also ignores that D.A.s habitually over-charge for the very purpose of being able to dump questionable and padded charges.
So, when people take those views, there is no way they have any remote connection to the legal system, much less work within in.
@ 4:49
Spoken like lifer PD.
9:06–Nope, never worked for the PD, and I'm not a liberal by any stretch.
It's not a matter of where someone lands on the political spectrum. It's matter of simply having at least half a brain.
For example,9:06, assuming you are a lawyer, I assume you know how utterly absurd it would be to eliminate the concept of plea negotiating in criminal cases. If not, then you are not a lawyer either, nor would you be someone who is even remotely connected to the necessary realities of how the legal system operates.
True conservatives and libertarians (notice I did not say Republicans) REQUIRE due process and we celebrate when it is exercised, if even reluctantly when a pedophile goes free, unpunished. Any other perception, you're either not an actual conservative or you watch MSNBC.
Can the moderator get rid of 10:10? They're clearly not an attorney and the right wing tin foil hat comments are kinda harshin our chill here.
A definite QAnon vibe.
Moderator, could you please remove the Antifa vibe of 10:47 and 10:38. They are clearly the Nevada Supreme Court.
DA Steve Wolfson is Q' ANon.
Yeah, let's CANCEL them all….. Who are the fascists now?
Thoughts on Van Law Firm? thanks.
why are you asking?
I see they have a job posting and am curious.
Tracie Duthie has survived. Everyone else turns over.
Per LinkedIn, she is now with 702Firm. So looks like everyone turns over. I've heard some unpleasant work experience from people who have worked for Sandy Van.
They're always hiring so there's your sign.
You could always call and ask our current attorneys, litigation team, paralegals, and case managers if they enjoy working here if you are wondering.
I did just treat our litigation team to dinner at Guy Savoy at Caesars. Not every boss is going to invite their attorneys, paralegals, and litigation team to a fancy dinner at the nicest restaurant in town. I may not boast about what I do, because I am a pretty quiet person in general.
I also do not want to show off when there are a ton of people hurting in the world who have lost their jobs and well that would be rather tone deaf, but apparently I have to defend myself because there are hurtful people out there that may not know me.
I was the boss who took our prelitigation attorneys out suit shopping recently for getting sworn in.
During the pandemic, I also donated tens of thousands of dollars of masks, goggles, and gloves to hospitals, nursing homes, and firefighters so that they could stay safe during the pandemic. Tens of thousands of dollars of bikes to children so that they would have presents this year if their parents could not afford to buy things for them because they lost their job. Thousands of dollars to Three Square so families would have meals.
Admittedly we haven't always had the best luck in hiring. I believe that sometimes you hire someone's resume and sometimes people lie to you and say that they are hardworking when they aren't. Every firm in the city has had probably a 50% success rate with hiring (as some books/statistics have said), and some firms probably also have employee horror stories. Either that or they have a very low bar. That is why there are a ton of books on hiring. If it were easy, no one would need a how to guide. We have learned a few things through the years with hiring, but sometimes we still get it wrong.
We are also one of the fastest growing firms in the state as we have thousands of mass tort cases. We decided to diversify and ramp up mass torts during the pandemic so that we could keep our team employed and not have to lay off anyone. So with the added leads that call from all across the country at various hours of the day and in different time zones, we needed to hire to field all the intake calls, to draft and review pleadings, and to review retainers and go over client questions. Sorry if we decided to be capitalistic and grow our firm and need to hire to do so.
We also decided to add on long term disability and short term disability in case any of our staff got sick with long covid and became disabled.
So sometimes you have to consider the source. Was it someone who did not work, could not prioritize, did not call clients or adjusters, could not settle or negotiate cases, lost clients or leads, etc?
Understandably I would be upset if that were occurring and I think you would be as well.
If you are still wondering, I encourage you to call the firm and ask to speak with an attorney, a paralegal, a case manager, etc to see what their experience is at our firm and whether or not you would be a fit.
With regards to Tracee, she is a very sweet and wonderful person, with a very big heart.
I'd appreciate you stop with the hurtful comments.
Sandy Van
Just because a firm is always hiring is not necessarily a negative thing. That could just mean the firm has a lot of work. And it is hard to find good associates. That is the case with my firm.
I literally did not know who Van was until just about now, but I support her and her firm in the face of hate. Haters gonna hate, Sandy; ignore them and move on.
Sandy Van – I don't know you but mad respect for your post. Excellent.
What could wrong in an execution? "HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man convicted of fatally beating his 83-year-old great aunt more than two decades ago was executed Wednesday evening without media witnesses present because prison agency officials neglected to notify reporters it was time to carry out the punishment.
Quintin Jones received the lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the September 1999 killing of Berthena Bryant, agency spokesman Jeremy Desel said about 30 minutes after Jones was pronounced dead.
Desel never received the usual phone call from the Huntsville Unit prison to bring reporters from The Associated Press and The Huntsville Item to the prison. He and the media witnesses were waiting in an office across the street.
“The Texas Department of Criminal Justice can only apologize for this error and nothing like this will ever happen again,” he said.
He said the execution, the first in Texas in nearly a year, included a number of new personnel who have never participated in the process."
https://apnews.com/article/texas-executions-lifestyle-747fc8994706df9dee9e64909c464b99
11:36, and that's why posts such as 12:37, 12:45,1:36 and 12:41 raise various issues, and the posts often don't agree with each other, but the common denominator is they all agree the system is broken.
If we spend millions and millions, and wait 25 years before we carry out a deaths sentence, which subjects the victims' families to all this torture of having to continuously relive the horrors, that is a very broken system.
And you raise a lot of issues, 11:36, and I'll complicate mattes by throwing a few more.
He committed this horrible crime as a totally drug-addled 20-year-old, and he was now approaching his mid-40's and appered to be a totally different person than when he committed the horrible crime.
For those who say, who cares, it was a horrible crime and they will shed no tears over his execution, if it were truly that simple and direct, I would not disagree.
But they did not execute the sick 20-year-old, drug addicted monster who murdered his great aunt. They instead executed a middle-aged man who, by all accounts, lived as positive and productive a life as is possible, appears to have developed some real sense of compassion, etc.
Would he even have been capable of this horrible crime if he were not on drugs? Who knows. Texas does not seem to care.
I might not care much either if he were executed within five or ten years of the crime. But once we let a quarter century elapse, it invites all sorts of other issues and inquires.
BTW for the poster who cited Texas as one of the more "efficient" death penalty states(wherein they implement the sentence within a few years of pronouncement) that certainly was not true in this case. Texas handled the matter with all the lack efficiency and great delay that we do in Nevada
@1:50
So you are saying that we should wait and see if the convicted develop remorse or demonstrate good behavior and only THEN decide whether to carry out the execution? Who would decide? – another trial? – another round of appeals?
9:13–no, that's not really what I meant, although I realize my awkward phraseology could easily create that impression.
Painting with much broader strokes, I am merely suggesting that the death penalty system is broken when we finally get around to executing someone in their mid-40's for a crime they may have committed like when they were 19.
It simply invites all sort o additional inquires–and, yes, sometimes that does mean a question of how, if all, that person has evolved, etc.
The D.A. can seek the death penalty all he wants as long as he realizes that no executions will actually be conducted, but that instead each side will spend millions fighting in the courts for the next quarter century, while the condemned remains on death row,and families of victims are continuously strung along and caused to suffer.
The families of the victims will never be able to get any distance from the tragedy because they keep getting very publicly sucked back in, with the carrot(of a supposed pending execution) continuously being dangled in front of them and then pulled away.
So, when D.A.s want to act all tough about the death penalty why don't they at least have the intellectual honesty to admit that 20 or 25 years will pass, millions will be spent, and the victims' families will continue to be tortured and strung along.
I know, foolish question, as none of this truly concerns viable policy or what is right or wrong, but is just for the purpose of making a public official more easily re-elected by bellowing a "tough on crime" stance.
But that farce(millions spent and no execution in sight after a quarter century, while victims' families continuously tortured) is the reality of how things transpire in Nevada and many other states, which makes it irrelevant to have a standard debate about the death penalty and whether it should be available.
This argument would be more appealing to me, but for my opinion that the defense bar broke the death penalty process, by building in error in the record to keep the cases from proceeding to an execution (and this is done in many cases to get multiple shots at trial), and by re-litigating the same issues that were already rejected repeatedly by courts. Now that the process is broke, the people whom I think broke it are saying thats why it should end. And yes, if they are factually innocent then this is fair play, and shame on the DA. But the vast majority of cases do not involve any real questions about guilt or innocence, yet they get litigated with a burn down the house mentality due to political/philosophical reasons, whether there are merits to arguments or not.
12:45–even if the defense has more responsibility for this mess than anyone else, isn't there enough culpability to go around?
When these case drag on 25 years after the death sentence was pronounced, with millions and millions spent, the blame needs to be shared–not just the defense, but the prosecution as well, the appellate judges, the legislatures, the media, activists, etc., etc., etc.
The problem cannot be totally explained by insisting the defense keeps re-litigating issues that were fully resolved.
After all that would, at the very least, require an appellate system that willingly keeps allowing the reconsideration of the same matters over and over.
Courts have tremendous power to control such matters to a significant extent. Whether they always exercise that power and control is yet another issue.
I am a homicide victim's family member. I don't care about being publicly (or otherwise) sucked in. You never heal and you never forget. Even if it takes 20 years to resolve the death sentence, the fact that they get it and have that hanging over their heads is some form of justice. Most criminals, including the ones who killed my family member, don't want to die. They do everything they can to get out of being sentenced to death or, when they are sentenced to death, they try to fight it. That fear is the very least they deserve for taking the life of someone else.
12:37–Why seek the death penalty? If there is no death penalty, no one will plead guilty to life without parole and roll the dice and go to trial. Every case of life without parole will go to trial or plead down to life with the possiblity of parole for the most heinous of crimes. Defendants will have a chance to get released on parole for the most awful murders. It is just not fair to victims to put them through a trial for those reasons. Also, there is evidence that serial killers avoid states with the death penalty. I am a retired former prosecutor and public defender. I have seen it first hand.
2:22,
Using that reasoning, we need to work on developing a sentence of Death Plus Cancer. That way, the most non-non-non-non-non-non-heinous of offenders can plea down to Death without Cancer.
Hey 1:36, most of the claims get "law-of-the-cased," but then they take so much energy to deal with, I'd expect that the courts/state get buried in these claims, and miss any actual meritorious argument. Its a game to keep the cases bouncing back and forth between state/federal habeas review and keep the clock running.
2:00-I feel terrible about what you have had to endure.
Some posters have indicated that if a life without possibility sentence is imposed initially, that although it is impossible, as you quite correctly point out, to truly "move on" or "have closure", family members of victims can at least proceed with their life without being very publicly, and very vividly, forced to sort of re-live the tragedy whenever there is a new media cycle about the status of the defendant's death penalty situation.
Even though no one truly heals from something like this, and will at times re-live the horror of it, don't you think it is particularly damaging for certain people to keep getting sucked back in each time there is high profile reporting of the case status?
Many family members of victims are contacted by the media whenever there is a supposedly imminent execution date arriving.
It's really good that you handle the situation well in the sense that having that death sentence issued is a proper form of justice in your view, and that such is better for you from your perspective than if the death penalty had not been imposed.
But don't you know family members of victims, perhaps even in your own immediate or extended family, who feel quite differently, and it is very emotionally damaging for them whenever there is a fresh news cycle about the case?
12:37-These cases obviously need to take a lot of time to avoid possible error, etc.
But once you pass the one decade mark, the briefs and proceedings have less to do with the evidence and issues in the actual case at issue, but instead become more of a generic legal/policy debate about the propriety of the death penalty.
So, yes, most of these cases should truly not take 20 or 25 years. On the other hand you don't want to be as "efficient" as Florida or Texas(and a few other states, mostly in the South), wherein the execution can occur a few short years after the sentence is pronounced, as that increases the chance for error, etc.
Unrelated question:
Is the clerk's office on 3rd floor open yet? Want to lodge a Will but don't want to wait 5-7 working days.
I lost a family member, and my best friend in junior high and high school, to murder. I would not experience any relief or satisfaction if their murderers were executed. I am not an especially forgiving person, I just think individuals who believe that the death of the killer will alleviate their grief will find that they are sadly mistaken.
What about a system where, if the court or jury determines the death penalty should be imposed, a second hearing of some sort that evaluates the victim's family's input? I'm sure there are a lot of considerations that could make that route unfeasible, but off the cuff, it seems like a decent idea.
At sentencing there are victim impact statements which usually include the input of family members.
Let's discuss something far more important(although, admittedly, far less timely):
Back in 1964-1966 should all those teenage girls at Beatles concerts cut out their incessant screaming so that the music could actually be heard?
A very good and time relevant question.
The PA sound systems that we now have, which can bloody your ears, where not then available.
But an even more important question is when did the Beatles realize that Led Zep was going to take the lead? When did Lennon become such an ass?
I think from 1963 to 1968, The Beatles were voted most popular group in England(as they were here and in most places)
But in 1969, Led Zeppelin was voted most popular group in England(despite the Beatles releasing "Abbey Road").
So, that should be when it should dawned on them and in fact they did officially disband in 1970.
Some would say Lennon was a real ass as early as 1966(His "We are more popular than Jesus" remark)but I think his continued abuse of acid led to highly delusional and incredible self-aggrandizing behavior(almost thought of himself as a counterculture messiah) during 1967 and 1968 period.
And by 1969 he was so completely under Yoko Ono's spell, that the Lennon we knew and loved was largely disappearing. What followed was an uneven period of political activism whereby he often focused on worthy targets, but other times he really miss-fired.
But ass or not, on the balance, Lennon was a very interesting, and very important figure, in 20th century culture, and of course, along with McCartney, the driving force of the greatest show on earth.
So, I love him even though he did, admittedly, as you suggest, become such an ass at times.
4:51–anything that deliciously weird and bafflingly irrelevant must win post of the day.
That all said, yes, they should have shut up. But telling a 15-year-old girl not to scream at a 1964 Beatles concert would be as useful as telling a very hungry infant, with a soaked diaper, not to cry.