Elmer Millard Gunderson

This case concerns the retrial and second conviction of Santillanes for first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon after an earlier reversal based on improper polygraph references. On appeal, Santillanes argued that references to his failure to attend scheduled police meetings violated his right to remain silent under Doyle v. Ohio, that testimony about his AWOL status from the Air Force was inadmissible evidence of an uncharged crime, and that the prosecutor improperly expressed a personal belief in his guilt. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that the missed meetings and AWOL evidence were admissible as conduct showing flight and consciousness of guilt rather than improper comments on silence, that any prosecutorial statements were cured by clarification and did not prejudice the jury, and that other evidentiary issues including forensic blood analysis met admissibility standards. The reasoning emphasized that Santillanes had initially waived Miranda rights and voluntarily agreed to meetings, distinguishing the facts from Doyle, and that the district court properly balanced probative value against prejudice.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned an insurance company's repeated denials of accident-policy benefits to a claimant who suffered a permanent stroke during an angiogram, even after multiple resubmissions with medical evidence confirming the event was accidental and unrelated to any pre-existing disease. The jury awarded the policy benefits plus compensatory and punitive damages for bad-faith handling, but the district court granted judgment notwithstanding the verdict and eliminated the punitive award. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed that ruling and reinstated the punitive damages, holding that substantial evidence showed the insurer's unjustified refusals, failure to investigate, and exploitation of the claimant's vulnerable position after the stroke.

business & regulatorytorts & liability

The case concerned a Reno police decoy operation in which an officer posed as an intoxicated person with money visible in his pocket to catch potential thieves; David Hawkins took the money and was arrested while his white companion was not. The district court granted Hawkins' habeas corpus petition, finding the operation indistinguishable from prior entrapment cases, and the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The court reasoned that the decoy planted the idea of the crime by creating an artificial temptation with no relation to actual street crimes in the area, as confirmed by the police survey and the prosecutor's statements, and thus constituted impermissible entrapment under precedents like Oliver and Moreland.

criminal lawprocedure

In Maresca v. State, the appellant was convicted of murder, attempted murder, and two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon following a 1981 shooting and robbery at the Airbase Inn near Reno, after which he fled to Florida and lived under an assumed name for five years. On appeal, he challenged the convictions on grounds including the loss of evidence such as photographs and a videotape, alleged prosecutorial misconduct in questioning about his silence and the mafia, and the admission of hearsay statements from a surviving victim. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the judgment and sentence, ruling that the appellant failed to show governmental bad faith or prejudice from the lost evidence, that any improper questions were not violations of his rights or were harmless, and that the hearsay statements met reliability requirements under state evidence rules given the circumstances and the declarant's unavailability. The court noted substantial other evidence of guilt, such as matching bullets found at the appellant's residence, unexplained loose change, and his flight after promising to speak with police.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether individuals charged with misdemeanor driving under the influence (DUI) in municipal courts are entitled to jury trials under the U.S. and Nevada Constitutions, and the constitutionality of NRS 266.550 which bars jury trials in municipal courts. The court consolidated various appeals and petitions from defendants whose demands for jury trials were denied. It determined that NRS 266.550 does not apply to the municipal courts of Las Vegas and North Las Vegas because those cities operate under special legislative charters. Turning to constitutional questions, the court observed that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial does not extend to petty offenses and analyzed the penalties associated with DUI to assess whether the offense qualifies as petty or serious.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved graduates of the unaccredited Nevada School of Law who had passed the Nevada bar exam but sought a waiver of SCR 51(3), the rule requiring a law degree from an ABA-accredited institution for admission to the State Bar of Nevada. The court granted the waiver petition, allowing the petitioners' admission despite the school's failure to obtain ABA provisional accreditation by the August 1988 deadline. The core reasoning was that the accreditation rule aims to ensure high standards of legal competence, but a waiver is appropriate when an applicant demonstrates that their education was functionally equivalent to that at an ABA-approved school, as the petitioners did through evidence of the school's improvements and other factors unrelated to educational quality.

procedure