- Quickdraw McLaw
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As mentioned in the comments yesterday, the Supreme Court issued ADKT 0504 amending Supreme Court Rule 36 regarding citation to unpublished opinions. While there was a comment period about the proposed rule change earlier this year, this is undoubtedly the first time some of you are hearing about it. The key point of the order is that, “Except to establish issue or claim preclusion or law of the case as
permitted by subsection 2, unpublished dispositions issued by the Court Of
Appeals may not be cited in any Nevada court purpose for any purpose.” The Order includes a dissent authored by Justice Pickering and joined by Justices Douglas and Hardesty.
What do you think of the Order? Do the recent grumblings about the lack of opinions from the Supreme Court color your opinion? Does saying that they may not be cited for “any purpose” frustrate you beyond belief? Does it hamper your ability to practice law? Even though the public comment period for the order closed some time ago, we’re certain that some of the justices will see your comments, so what did they miss?
Honestly as I read the ADKT, the thought that kept going through my head was "Hopefully this will stop Tao from writing his manifestoes now that he knows that they are useless for any purpose."
Who is Doug Ansell
Same person he was yesterday and the day before that when he was actually relevant to the topics of the day. Today, not so much.
The better question is: Who is Johnny?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA9WhYnsD_4
That's easy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpCUMdfRa9w
Stop being silly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDpipB4yehk
Who is John Galt?
Better question: Who is William Onyeabor?
Satoshi Nakamoto
Is he the second cousin of Keyser Söze?
Who is G. Bonjovi?
How ironic that the justification for the ADKT was that it was supposedly slowing down the COA when it has been the Supreme Court who has been horribly slow in kicking out opinions. Based upon that logic, maybe we should have a 1 year moratorium on any citeable opinions from either the Supreme Court or the COA so that they both can catch up on their workloads and stop delaying justice.
I haven't seen the COA issue a published opinion for some time (in fact, I heard a rumor that the Supreme Court was preventing the COA from issuing published opinions, because the SC had not contemplated that the COA would be able to do so at the time the SC was pushing for creation of the COA). In any regard, with few, if any, published opinions from the COA, and now not being able to cite to its unpublished opinions, the COA is effectively neutered and worthless to me.
It is effectively a three-judge panel of District Court Judges, nothing more.
The Supreme Court definitely contemplated the COA issuing published opinions because that was one of the selling points for the COA–we'll have two courts and more citeable opinions !
Yeah, but that was before, you know, they started actually doing it. The Supreme Court also promised Nevadans that if the CoA was approved, they would decrease the number of justices on the highest court, and look how that turned out.
They also promised us that the system would be more efficient, backlogs would be reduced and that productivity would increase by 40% because we would effectively have another 3 Judge/Justice Panel. We were lied to in every manner by the Nevada Supreme Court on this issue.
Damn, I just cited a well-reasoned CoA opinion. The NSC has an unpublished decision the same issue but it's 4 lines.
Do other states have similar rules on their COA's opinions? Seems worthless to me to have a COA that we can't cite to.
Other states have rules that unpublished opinions at ALL levels are not citeable. I am not aware of a state where unpublished Supreme Court opinions are citeable and unpublished COA opinions are not.
Really don't see the reason for all the heartburn over this one. Who cares that you can't cite to the unpublished opinion. Nothing prevents you from citing to the same supporting cases that the unpublished opinion cited to and making the same arguments that the author of the unpublished opinion argued. The only significant difference is instead of it being persuasive authority it's merely argument of the party. The justice or COA judge considering the appeal will likely give the argument the same weight whether it is "persuasive authority" or "argument"… If they agree they will run with it and if they disagree they wouldn't have been persuaded by it anyways.
Here's what I don't get… I've seen lots of lawyers in lots of cases cite whatever authority they can find — whether it's a district court ruling in Clark County or D.Nevada, an out-of-state opinion, or even secondary sources like law journals. Judges know that those sources aren't binding, but they do often find the rationale to be persuasive. What sense does it make for the Supreme Court to say that this particular subset of cases, unpublished decisions by the COA, "may not be cited in any Nevada court for any purpose"?!
If the rationale in an opinion is helpful to me, you can be damned sure that I'm citing to it, ADKT 0504 or not.
Interestingly that is what Pickering, Hardesty and Douglas argued in the Dissent. Before the rule was changed allowing citation to and reliance upon Unpublished Decisions, judges were reading and relying on Unpublished Decisions anyway. So with the passage of this rule, judges will continue to read and rely upon unpublished decisions.
Pete Domenici dead. He was someone's father
Will Adam go to his father's funeral?
Can we refer to ADKT 504 as the "Don't cite Abbi rule?"
No, because it will be out of date as soon she wins a spot on the Supreme Court bench next year.
God help us all and protect us from the Social Climbers
I would take Silver over Cadish.
You may get both, 3:56
A cynic would argue the new, new rule allows the Court to make unpublished, outcome based decisions for cronies and their clients without regard to the precedent. But, we know that our Supreme Court is would never decide a case based on personal relationships, politics, or campaign contributions. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Great job Nevada Supreme Court. No Forthcoming Opinions this week according to the Clerk. That means you will go 7 weeks without a published Opinion. Keep up the good (lack of) work.
Is it not possible that we will could see an opinion tomorrow with out it appearing as a forthcoming opinion?
It come happen, but it's pretty rare.
What did the court of appeals judges say about the rule their orders can't be cited? when was the last time they published an opinion? Some time before Silver became chief. I think all their opinions were when Gibbons was chief.
Kristina Kirigin is smoldering librarian hot.