With a background both in journalism and law, I especially relish reading about local legal matters. But this has gotten to be a problem at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters as the media continue to wither away in Nevada. Some good stuff just doesn’t get covered.
Take the Nevada Supreme Court, based in the geographically remote, named-for-a-war-criminal capital of Carson City. The tribunal generally issues opinions only on Thursdays, and rarely more than five. But as far as I can tell, no reporters cover the court on an urgent regular basis, even though that should be easy, since opinions are immediately posted online and there aren’t all that many of them.
‘Tis a pity. The Nevada Supreme Court is not what I would call an influential state tribunal, like the top courts in California, New York and my native New Jersey, whose decisions are closely read and even heeded around the country. But the seven-member court has a moderately liberal perspective and an interesting jurisprudence that is still evolving. A surprising number of cases concern matters of first impression, in that they involve legal issues that haven’t been decided in Nevada, which for most of its history has been thinly populated with a correspondingly lesser amount of litigation. Laments a online-posted study guide issued by the library of the state’s only law school, at UNLV, “Nevada case research is limited by the fact that there is very little case law available to research.” I find Nevada Supreme Court opinions well-written and reasoned as they sort their way through often-uncharted terrain, and worth reading.
That brings me to a unanimous Nevada Supreme Court decision issued more than a month ago, which from what I can tell has gotten no real attention either in the news media or in legal circles but holds the promise of incredibly wide applicability. It is now the law in the Battle Born State that a hit-and-run accident in a private parking lot where no one is injured is no crime.
Residents and especially tourists, beware. Continue reading