attorney

CARSON CITY – Nevada Supreme Court Justice James Hardesty said a program the state initiated a few years ago to pardon selected illegal resident inmates so they could be deported to free up space in the prison system was in his view successful.
Hardesty said the review resulted in 106 nonviolent inmates being granted conditional pardons in exchange for a waiver of any immigration hearing and agreement to be deported to their country of origin.

A Carson City judge agreed with Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller who says an out-of-state organization that ran TV ads featuring gubernatorial candidate Brian Sandoval must register as a Political Action Committee before conducting any more political activity in the state.

Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto joined an Amici Curiae brief issued by the Attorney General of Kansas and joined by 47 states and the District of Columbia to protect the privacy and emotional health of grieving families of returning war dead. The issue concerns the right of a group to picket and protest at military funerals. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had ruled against the privacy of the family and in favor of the protest group. 

Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong and the city are being sued for $10,000 by a former deputy sheriff who is alleging defamation, invasion of privacy, false light and emotional distress. Download the PDF of the lawsuit here.

The plaintiff, Paula Andrews, was the subject of an internal investigation involving falsifying documents and grand larceny in December 2008. According to the lawsuit, the investigation concluded the allegations were unfounded. Nevertheless, the plaintiff was later "constructively discharged."

CARSON CITY – A member of the citizen’s panel appointed by lawmakers to chart Nevada’s future for the next 20 years expressed concern today about whether the process to be followed to complete the effort conforms to meet the requirements of the state Open Meeting Law.

Las Vegas attorney Mark Hutchison says he will soon be going to Florida for oral arguments in the federal motion to dismiss the health care lawsuit being brought by 20 states including Nevada.
Reagan-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson will hear arguments challenging the states’ right to bring the suit on September 14, 2010 in the Northern District of Florida.

A Clark County District Court jury last Friday ordered Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Baxter Healthcare Services to pay a combined $500 million in punitive damages to a Nevada man who contracted Hepatitis C during an outbreak two years ago.
The jury award was the largest in Nevada history.
In a statement issued shortly after the jury reached its decision, Teva said it planned to contest the verdict.  A spokesman for Baxter later confirmed the company will also most likely appeal.

An unemployed Carson City man was arrested Tuesday on a Tri-Net warrant charging possession and sale of drugs, according to a deputy report.
The man, Marco Antonio Mendez, 34, was an inmate in the Carson City Jail who had recently been transported from the Northern Nevada Correctional Center.
The warrant was a complaint filed from the deputy district attorney alleging the sale of a schedule I controlled substance, drug trafficking of between four and 14 grams and drug trafficking of substances 28 grams or more. All charges are felonies. Bail has been set at $100,000.

A Carson City father and two sons are in jail facing multiple felony and misdemeanor charges after allegedly beating a man who was apparently in an argument with a family member in which a cell phone was broken.
The incident was reported on Monday at 9:20 p.m., when a deputy was dispatched to the 300 block of David Street for a report of three men kicking in the door of an apartment.

CARSON CITY – Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki says it is now clear the Nevada Legislature should have “securitized� the money the state was scheduled to receive as part of a settlement with the tobacco companies a decade ago to protect it from the current reality of lower than expected annual payments.

CARSON CITY – A spokesman for Nevada State Treasurer Kate Marshall is rejecting any suggestion that her participation in radio ads to promote a children’s contest involving a college savings program is aimed at helping her re-election campaign.

But a campaign consultant for her GOP opponent called Marshall a hypocrite for engaging in the same practice she criticized her predecessor for doing, and for “pushing the envelope” by running ads after the close of filing for office.

RENO – The three Republican candidates vying to become the next governor of Nevada engaged in a spirited discussion Friday on issues ranging from taxes and public education to the future of Yucca Mountain.

Carson City authorities made a significant methamphetamine bust over the weekend, netting at least 30 grams of the drug, seizing a vehicle and finding police scanners and night vision cameras used as surveillance.

Deputies arrested the 52-year-old suspect, a Carson City carpenter, on numerous felony drug charges including drug trafficking.

CARSON CITY – With federally mandated health insurance now the law of the land barring a successful legal challenge, some state lawmakers say it is more urgent than ever to create competition among insurance providers by allowing Nevada residents to buy polices from out of state companies.

CARSON CITY – One of the major backers of a proposed 2008 measure aimed at raising the bar on tax increases said today a court ruling upholding the right of Tea Party of Nevada candidate Scott Ashjian to remain on the ballot shows the need for more clarity in state election law.

Despite signing a pledge eight years ago that he would oppose domestic partnerships outside of marriage, gubernatorial contender Brian Sandoval, who last year said he supports such arrangements, said today he forgot he had signed the document.  Sandoval also claimed there was no contradiction.
“I have always believed that marriage is between a woman and a man,” said Sandoval. “My position has not changed at all. When I signed that pledge in 2002, I interpreted domestic partnerships to be an analogue for marriage.”

Carson City District Judge James T. Russell did not reach a decision at the end of today’s hearing held to determine whether Nevada Tea Party Senate candidate Scott Ashjian should be dropped from the ballot for the November election, saying he wanted to take the time to look over the information and be fair to both sides of the case.

This morning in a statewide media conference call moderated by the Nevada News Bureau, candidate Brian Sandoval fielded questions on numerous issues including the 2003 Supreme Court ruling on the two-thirds legislative supermajority needed to increase taxes, tax policy, the Tax Pledge, budget cuts and higher education salaries, renewable energy mandates and the state’s health care reform lawsuit.

CARSON CITY – A Las Vegas attorney running for attorney general as a Republican against Democrat incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto, and who called for a State Bar investigation into her release of a letter to the press about a potential legal challenge to the federal health care law, is now himself the subject of a bar inquiry.
Attorney Jacob Hafter called the inquiry ridiculous.
“It just shows the type of protection these incumbents have,” he said.

The state Republican party has confirmed it will be filing an ethics complaint against Secretary of State Ross Miller and state Treasurer Kate Marshall alleging the improper use of publicly funded web pages, phone lines and state employees for their respective reelection campaigns.
“The Nevada Republican party is moving forward with an ethics complaint,” confirmed Ciara Turns, Communications Director for the state party.  “We look forward to the ethics commission completing an investigation into these improper actions.”

CARSON CITY – Despite being described as a “wounded” senator who has not been effective in representing Nevada in Washington, DC, state Republican officials and candidates surveyed by the Nevada News Bureau for the most part are still not calling on U.S. Senator John Ensign, R-Nev., to step down.

Four attorneys with ties to the issues and parties of Nevada’s health care reform lawsuit gave their perspectives to media and political bloggers during a Nevada News Bureau-hosted conference call this afternoon.
Mark Hutchison, lead counsel for Governor Gibbons’ newly retained pro-bono team, said he plans to participate in a conference with US District Court Judge Roger Vinson next week as part of the process to join Florida and other states in an amended complaint challenging the federal government on provisions in the recently passed health care legislation.

CARSON CITY – A member of the Gibbons administration said today he believes Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto violated attorney-client privilege when she commented on legal work she is doing on behalf of the governor.
The comment was made by Deputy Chief of Staff Lynn Hettrick during an interview on the Nevada NewsMakers television program. The discussion centered on Gibbons’ decision to move forward today with a challenge to the federal health care law without the participation of the attorney general’s office.

The state Supreme Court has refused to move up a court date on a case to handle mining's attempt to scuttle a voter petition drive to raise its taxes.

In so doing, the court rejected a request from the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) to move up the dates for filing briefs so it doesn't have a chilling effect on the collection of voter signatures.

In an act of defiance against the advice given him by Attorney General Catherine Cortez-Masto, Governor Gibbons appears to be arranging to have private counsel, acting on his behalf as Governor, file suit against enactment of the recently passed National Health Care Reform Act.

CARSON CITY – Nevada is one of 35 states getting a D grade or lower for failing to protect the public from aggressive asset forfeiture efforts by law enforcement, a process called “policing for profit,” according to a study released this week by the Washington, DC-based Institute for Justice.

A dozen community and labor groups from Nevada have signed onto a letter to Attorney General Catherine Cortez-Masto urging her to support, not file suit, over federal health care reform.
Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons this week demanded the Attorney General join a lawsuit filed by 14 other Attorneys General to block implementation of federal health care reform, a package of changes that critics of the lawsuits claim are needed in Nevada, where an estimated 400,000 men, women and children lack health insurance coverage.

Let me preface this by saying the just-passed health care reform law provokes strong opinions on both sides, and I'm not going to attempt in this post to pass judgement one way or the other.

But it seems very clear that embattled Gov. Jim Gibbons is trying to use this issue to boost his reelection chances, to the detriment of the state.

U.S. Senate

Sharon Angle, Republican

Scott Ashjian, Tea Party

Gary Bernstein, Republican

Sherry Brooks, Republican

John Chachas, Republican

Here is the final filing information from the Carson City Elections Office as of 5 p.m. The filing period is now closed. The primary election is set for Tuesday, June 8.