The New Southpaws: The Turning of the Nevada Supreme Court's Criminal Decisions

I. INTRODUCTION This high court study examines Nevada Supreme Court's criminal rulings from 1997 to 2002. The Court's criminal rulings during this period provide over forty majority opinions that were concurrently published with separate opinions. These separate opinions allow for analysis of individual justices' stances on issues that are relevant to them. The Nevada Supreme Court has undergone major changes in recent years with addition of new seats, a new chief justice, and with other changes to increase efficiency, such as mandatory settlement procedures. (1) The court swelled from five to seven members in 1997 through a legislative amendment, with new justices taking office in 1999. (2) The members of court are also elected every six years, requiring incumbent members to run for reelection. (3) The elections are staggered, which is proscribed by Nevada State Constitution, so that number of justices running for re-election every two years is roughly equal. (4) Since additional justices were added to bench, cases are now generally heard by three-member panels instead of en banc as was previously custom, although occasionally, cases are still heard by court as whole. (5) Further, court has a backlog of well over a thousand cases, which justices are constantly struggling to overcome. (6) Developing strategies to overcome this backlog is a common platform in re-election campaigns. (7) While Supreme Court is Nevada's highest court of record, court also has jurisdiction in all civil cases arising in district courts and over questions of law in criminal cases in which the offense charged is within original jurisdiction of district courts. (8) Since there is no intermediate appellate court in Nevada, petitioners have an automatic right to appeal directly to Supreme Court, which must review all cases filed. (9) Many of cases, however, are disposed of without an opinion. In years 2000-2001, of 2,008 cases disposed of, 112 were disposed of with an opinion, and 1,896 were disposed of via an order. (10) Given Court's backlog of cases, however, 1,628 appeals were still pending before Court at close of 2001. (11) It is worthwhile to examine current climate of court given its recent history and numerous changes in make-up of Court, all acting in concert to bring Nevada Supreme Court into new millennium. II. THE JUSTICES The Chief Justice of Nevada Supreme Court serves a two-year rotation; a justice is eligible for position when he or she has least amount of service remaining on his or her term on Court, typically meaning when remaining term is two years from completion. (12) Robert E. Rose occupies Seat C (13) and is most outspoken of current members of court, often dissenting. His term expires in 2006. (14) Justice Rose has crusaded for a strong chief-justice system in Nevada's district courts, for more efficiency in court system, particularly with record keeping, and implementation of a state intermediate appeals court. (15) It was under Justice Rose's leadership that court's backlog topped 2,500 cases in 1997, a possible source for his continued interest in Court's efficiency. (16) Although Supreme Court has been effective in reducing both case backlog and amount of time that it takes for an appeal to be heard, Justice Rose nonetheless asserted need for an intermediate appellate court to ease case load. (17) Voters, however, have twice defeated this proposal. (18) Cliff Young, who occupied Seat D on Court, left Court at end of 2002. (19) He has distinction of being both oldest Nevada Supreme Court justice and oldest living former Nevada Congressman. (20) Justice Young was elected to Nevada Supreme Court in 1984 after unseating Justice Noel Manoukian, who had been feuding with other members of court. …