MINUTES OF THE meeting
of the
ASSEMBLY Committee on Judiciary
Seventy-First Session
March 19, 2001
The Committee on Judiciarywas called to order at 8:30 a.m., on Monday, March 19, 2001. Chairman Bernie Anderson presided in Room 3138 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mr. Bernie Anderson, Chairman
Mr. Mark Manendo, Vice Chairman
Ms. Sharron Angle
Mr. Greg Brower
Mr. John Carpenter
Mr. Jerry Claborn
Mr. Tom Collins
Mr. Don Gustavson
Mrs. Ellen Koivisto
Ms. Kathy McClain
Mr. Dennis Nolan
Mr. John Oceguera
Ms. Genie Ohrenschall
COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT:
Ms. Barbara Buckley (excused)
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
Nicolas Anthony, Committee Policy Analyst
Risa B. Lang, Committee Counsel
Deborah Rengler, Committee Secretary
OTHERS PRESENT:
Nancy E. Hart, Deputy Attorney General, Reno, NV
M. Veronica Frenkel, Domestic Violence Ombudsman, Attorney General’s Office, Reno, NV
Grace George, Records & Identification Services, Nevada Highway Patrol, Carson City, NV
Patricia A. Lynch, Reno City Attorney, Reno, NV
Kathrine I. Berning, Chief Deputy Attorney, Criminal Division, Office of the Reno City Attorney, Reno, NV
Susan Meuschke, Executive Director, Nevada Network Against Domestic Violence, Reno, NV
Gemma Waldron, Deputy District Attorney, Criminal Division, Washoe County District Attorney’s Office, Reno, NV
Gene T. Porter, Chief Judge of the Eighth Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV
Dianne Steel, President of the Nevada District Judges Association and presiding Judge of the Family Division of the Eighth Judicial District Court, Las Vegas, NV
Chairman Anderson said a quorum was present and made opening remarks. He opened the hearing on A.B. 259.
Assembly Bill 259: Revises provisions governing warrantless arrests and requires prosecuting attorney to prepare report concerning disposition of cases involving certain acts of violence. (BDR 14-212)
Assemblywoman McClain, District 15, was the bill sponsor. Her original thought behind A.B. 259 was the establishment of a Domestic Violence Court, much like Drug Court, where the victims and perpetrators were both required to attend counseling and report back to the court. Domestic violence was a cycle that must be broken; it was Assemblywoman McClain’s opinion one could not pull people into court, slap their hands, split them up, and expect abuses to go away. After reviewing many reports it was discovered there were not “good” numbers on what happened to the cases. There were many arrest numbers and surveys taken across the country; yet in Clark County alone, there were 3,500 cases of domestic violence, but nowhere could it be discovered what happened to those cases. It should be known what happened between the arrest and the court adjudication. Was the case dismissed, was it plea bargained, were they charged with a crime that had nothing to do with domestic violence? Unfortunately, murders were an outgrowth of domestic violence; but if charged with murder the cases did not track the domestic violence. So, A.B. 259 would require prosecuting attorneys to report on the disposition of all domestic violence arrests.
The second part of the bill covered “warrantless” arrests. A.B. 259 clarified “warrantless” arrests could be made in domestic violence cases by referring back to the domestic violence chapter. It would also be used in the case of violation of protective orders.
Nancy E. Hart, Deputy Attorney General, reported the Attorney General’s Office strongly supported A.B. 259, which made two important changes to laws governing domestic violence offenses (Exhibit C). The first section of A.B. 259 made an important clarification to the misdemeanor arrest law; the second section provided for critical data collection that would further domestic violence prevention efforts in the state of Nevada.
Ms. Hart quoted Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) 171.137, NRS 33.070(1) and NRS 33.100, which allowed “warrantless” arrests for domestic battery and violation of a protection order. However, she said NRS 171.136 put limitations on when arrests could be made since they were misdemeanors. A.B. 259 would amend NRS 171.136 to remove any ambiguity regarding when misdemeanor domestic violence arrests might be made, allowing an officer to arrest at any time of day or night when the offense charged was domestic battery and/or violation of a protection order against domestic violence.
The second section of A.B. 259 provided for the collection of critical data concerning dispositions of domestic violence cases. As the administrator of federal grants funds under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the Attorney General’s Office documented the impact of federal funding on efforts to combat domestic violence in Nevada. Currently, there were no formal statistics gathered in Nevada concerning what happened to domestic violence cases following an arrest. The VAWA office within the U.S. Department of Justice expected Nevada to develop and implement methods for the uniform collection of data, including violations of protection orders prosecuted and not prosecuted.
Under existing statutes, NRS 171.1227 provided for law enforcement reporting concerning domestic violence incidents whether or not an arrest had been made. That report was forwarded to the Central Repository for Nevada Criminal History Records, where the information was stored in the Uniform Crime Reporting program. A.B. 259 would add a similar requirement for reports from prosecuting agencies. The information collected would be used for research and statistical purposes, using a broader range of domestic violence offenses and including how cases were disposed of by prosecuting agencies.
Assemblyman Carpenter asked if federal grant funding went to local agencies to collect data. Nancy Hart reported the VAWA funds were available for prosecution agencies, law enforcement agencies, and criminal justice agencies based on grant applications and requests. Of that funding available, there was a priority or criteria that pertained to data collection and data gathering projects.
Veronica Frenkel, Domestic Violence Ombudsman, Attorney General’s Office, expressed her perspective (Exhibit D) regarding the need for changes to Nevada law being recommended in A.B. 259. Because of her unique responsibilities as Ombudsman, which included the responsibility to write and publish reports regarding domestic violence in Nevada, she focused her comments on Section 2 of A.B. 259, which addressed an important need in the area of information gathering regarding the criminal justice system’s response to domestic violence. Under NRS 228.460, the Ombudsman was required to generate quarterly reports on domestic violence based on statistics gathered by the Central Repository. Unfortunately, the only statistics consistently and uniformly gathered on a statewide basis and stored within the Uniform Crime Reporting Program were law enforcement reports statutorily required by NRS 171.1227. A.B. 259 would expand the information available by requiring prosecution agencies to submit data on the disposition of domestic violence cases. Data from this phase of the criminal justice process would assist agencies and organizations in their decisions regarding training and resource allocation.
Chairman Anderson asked if the Attorney General’s Office was receiving sufficient funding for the position of Domestic Violence Ombudsman. Ms. Frenkel reported the position was currently grant-funded as the statute allowed.
Chairman Anderson asked if, without the grant dollars, would there be sufficient funding. Ms. Frenkel reported, according to the court assessment account, the number of domestic violence cases was going down, and the number of convictions was going down; that was why she needed to see the information.
Grace George, Criminal History Record Repository, provided information regarding the impact of A.B. 259 on the Repository, in particular for the statistical collection processes at the data entry level. With current law, an officer must report any incident of domestic violence, whether an arrest was made or not. If an arrest was not made, the mitigating circumstances (Exhibit E) were to be explained. When an arrest was made, the person would be fingerprinted at the jail, and that information would be forwarded to be stored in the Repository. At that point, it would wait for a deposition to the case from various levels of the justice system beginning with the prosecution to the court disposition.
Assemblyman Carpenter asked if Ms. George’s office had applied for grant funds. Ms. George said her office had benefited from the VAWA grants in the past, collecting protection order information. Applications had also been sent to the Bureau of Justice Statistics regarding collecting National Incident-Based Reporting Statistics (NIBRS), a study on the feasibility to collect such data.
Assemblyman Carpenter felt more information should be obtained regarding available grants. Ms. George reported the particular grant received was strictly for a study on their ability to collect information statewide. The Henderson Police Department also received funds to collect NIBRS data, but it was specific to NIBRS data rather than domestic violence statistics. Ms. George said they were searching for additional funding to support the data collection.
Chairman Anderson asked why a fiscal note had not yet been prepared. Assemblywoman McClain reported the Legislative Counsel Bureau had not received much of a response and consequently the fiscal note had not been printed yet.
Chairman Anderson requested previously-mentioned statistics Ms. George had on domestic violence cases. He particularly was interested in the number of filings as compared to the number of prosecutions. Ms. George stated any “non-fingerprint based” citation information was not available.
Chairman Anderson verified when fingerprints were taken; there would be follow-up through the justice court system. Ms. George reported all information on the arrest and disposition was collected. There was generic information on the incidents whether an arrest was made or not.
Assemblyman Carpenter believed a reason many cases were not prosecuted was due to witnesses declining to take the stand to testify against the perpetrator. Ms. Frenkel reported domestic violence cases were challenging for prosecutors. It was understandable why a victim might be reluctant to testify, which should be a critical piece of information to be gathered. Often the role of a victim advocate was to facilitate the relationship between the prosecutor’s office and the victim; the situation was usually overwhelming and intimidating for victims of domestic violence. Ms. George added A.B. 259 would allow collection of information regarding why domestic violence cases were not prosecuted; and this might also be handled if reporting was established from the prosecuting agencies including the reason why there was no prosecution.
Chairman Anderson asked what level of compliance had Ms. George experienced with the current reporting law? Ms. George reported 58 percent of all arrests were followed up by disposition reports.
Patricia Lynch, Reno City Attorney, had mixed emotions about A.B. 259. She supported Section 1 of the bill; it was a good cleanup section. The language in Section 2, Subsection 1, was broad dealing with the reporting of “any action.” That needed to be eliminated or clarified.
Ms. Lynch also voiced concern about statistics and a belief that A.B. 259 might actually backfire. Ms. Lynch said the prosecutor’s job was not to get convictions; it was to see that justice was done. The appropriate disposition of a case might be a dismissal; that could be justice. There were prosecutor offices hesitant to take cases because their “win rate” would go down. If prosecutors were being evaluated based on the number of convictions, they would not go into a case that was on-the-line. When budget offices asked for the number of convictions, Ms. Lynch did not provide that information because it was her belief those numbers did not provide an accurate gauge of whether her office was doing a good job. If the goal was to get a Domestic Violence Court, she believed enough statistics existed based on the volume of arrests and cases. If the goal was to improve the process, Ms. Lynch was sure the offices of the district attorneys and city attorneys would welcome help from cities that were expert at prosecuting domestic violence cases. If additional training was the goal, fund and mandate domestic violence training for prosecutors. Prosecutors need to understand the dynamics of domestic violence in order to do a better job of prosecuting; without training prosecutors should not be allowed to accept domestic violence cases.
In closing, Ms. Lynch submitted a letter from the city of Las Vegas, Office of the City Attorney (Exhibit F), that expressed the belief that the Las Vegas City Attorney was not prepared to meet the increased demands A.B. 259 would place on its staff. A.B. 259 would impact the “capability of an already over-burdened prosecutive offices…have an effect that is contrary to its intended purpose.”
Chairman Anderson understood statistical gathering was not something the courts were ever happy to see the legislature take on, but the very subject of the concerns was the type of information needed. Chairman Anderson was concerned that a complete picture of the domestic violence area did not exist. That information needed to be shared through the repository.
Kathrine Berning, Chief Deputy Attorney, Criminal Division, Reno City Attorney, added the Reno City Attorney wanted to be held accountable and wanted to hold batterers accountable. Twenty percent of cases were dismissed because the cases charged the victim. The Reno City Attorney’s office would support having funding for the ombudsman position to go into prosecutors’ offices to perform an evaluation. The office welcomed more information and more tools; they welcomed being held accountable.
Ms. Lynch asked if funding could be made available for the ombudsman to go into district attorneys’ and city attorneys’ offices to look at statistics. Chairman Anderson reiterated the Judicial Committee was allowed to make policy, not allocate money.
Sue Meuschke, Executive Director of the Nevada Network Against Domestic Violence (NNADV), spoke in favor of A.B. 259. In prepared statement (Exhibit G), she read, “Law enforcement’s ability to arrest at any time of the day or night in cases involving domestic violence is critical.” A.B. 259 would correct the oversight permitting “arrest free hours” for battering or violating a protection order. In respect to Section 2, “Without data to provide us with a picture of the scope of domestic violence in Nevada as well as the effectiveness of enforcement, intervention and prevention efforts, we cannot gauge what, if any, progress is being made to improve our response.” A.B. 259 would require the collection of statistics that could provide a clearer picture for the criminal justice system.
Gemma Waldron, Deputy District Attorney, Criminal Division, Washoe County District Attorney’s Office, supported Section 1 of A.B. 259. In respect to Section 2, Ms. Waldron was concerned about the cost involved. The criteria in A.B. 259 were far broader than anything currently being collected.
Ms. Waldron believed that possibly A.B. 146, which proposed an appropriation to University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for establishment and operation of a center for analysis of crime statistics within the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, would be a more appropriate vehicle to handle the issue.
Chairman Anderson closed the hearing on A.B. 259 and indicated he would talk to the primary sponsor of the bill.
Chairman Anderson opened the hearing on A.B. 109 and asked Judge Gene Porter to approach the witness table.
Assembly Bill 109: Increases number of district judges in eighth judicial district. (BDR 1-520)
Gene Porter, Chief Judge of the Eighth Judicial District Court of the state of Nevada, introduced additional staff at the hearing: the current President of the Nevada District Judges Association and presiding Judge of the Family Division of the Eighth Judicial District Court, Ms. Dianne Steel; a colleague from the Eighth Judicial District Court, Mr. Ronald Parraguirre; from the Administrative Office of the Courts, Ms. Karen Kavanau and Ms. Judy Holt; the Court Administrator from the Eighth Judicial District Court, Mr. Chuck Short; and the Assistant Court Administrator, Mr. Rick Loop.
A.B. 109 would increase the number of district court judges in Clark County from 30 to 35. He presented statistical information (Exhibit H and Exhibit I) based upon the 1999-2000 caseload, in an effort to show the impact additional judges would have on the existing caseload. Much of the information had previously been presented during testimony given in support of the judicial compensation bill, S.B. 184 that adjusts prospective salaries of Supreme Court justices and District Court judges. Comparisons were made based upon information from Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix (Maricopa County), the closest similarly-situated metropolitan areas. Comparing workload and productivity, Judge Porter proposed that Eighth Judicial District Court judges were among the most productive and underpaid in the country.
|
County |
Average Yearly Take Home Salary |
Number of District Court Judges |
Population |
Population Per Judge |
Filings Per Judge |
Dispositions Per Judge
|
|
Los Angeles |
$163,822 |
238 |
9.2 Million |
38,655 |
1,244 |
943 |
|
Maricopa |
$120,750 |
82 |
2.8 Million |
34,146 |
1.395 |
1,252 |
|
San Diego |
$143,852 |
71 |
2.9 Million |
40.845 |
1,474 |
1,408 |
|
CLARK COUNTY |
$108,667 |
27 |
1.3 Million |
48,148 |
2,254 |
2,025 |
Also noteworthy was the comparison of workload and productivity to salary and the same figures for case dispositions.
|
County |
Salary |
Filings Per Judge |
Cost Per Filing |
Dispositions Per Judge |
Cost Per Case Dispositions |
|
Los Angeles |
$163,822 |
1,244 |
$132 |
943 |
$174 |
|
Maricopa |
$120,750 |
1.395 |
$98 |
1,252 |
$96 |
|
San Diego |
$143,852 |
1,474 |
$87 |
1,408 |
$102 |
|
CLARK COUNTY |
$108,667 |
2,254 |
$48 |
2,025 |
$54 |
The projected caseload in July 2003, the year the additional judges would become available, would be 2,411 cases per judge and provided one judge for every 49,705 citizens. The addition of five judges, the most the new regional justice center could accommodate, would reduce the caseload to 2,067 cases and provided one judge for every 45,421 citizens. That would still be 700 cases more per judge than the comparison counties. In order to achieve caseload parity with other states and other judicial districts within the state of Nevada, Clark County would require the addition of 18 new judges.
Judge Dianne Steel, Judge of the Family Division of the Eighth Judicial District Court, was available for support and to answer any questions.
Chairman Anderson asked, since the juvenile court system had been expanded in the Sixty-Ninth Legislative Session and the family court system had been expanded in the Seventieth Legislative Session, if the filings continued to increase at the same rate or a higher rate in the family court system than in the general population section? Judge Porter said it was a direct result of the population explosion in southern Nevada. He quoted the following:
|
Year |
Juvenile Caseloads |
|
1996 |
7,457 |
|
1997 |
7,532 |
|
1998 |
7,702 |
|
1999 |
7,922 |
|
2000 |
8,398 |
Judge Steel agreed the juvenile caseload had increased and she had recently deployed judicial staff to assist with the increased caseload.
Chairman Anderson asked Judge Porter if he had the ability to move judges within the divisions to assist with caseload problems. Judge Porter answered he did not have the ability to move judges; civil criminal judges did not hear family matters, and family court judges did not hear civil criminal matters.
Chairman Anderson asked if there were any volunteers to “take up the slack.” Judge Porter answered if he had a volunteer, he would find a way to accommodate them.
Judge Steel noted there were statutes that did allow, from time to time, to have a general jurisdiction judge look at family law cases, those with non-children issues. In that situation, the familiarity with family court issues might be lost. Consequently, it was hoped to keep family law issues in the family court.
Chairman Anderson closed the hearing on A.B. 109 and entertained a motion.
ASSEMBLYMAN CARPENTER MADE A MOTION TO “DO PASS” A.B. 109.
VICE CHAIRMAN MANENDO SECONDED THE MOTION.
MOTION CARRIED WITH ASSEMBLYWOMAN BUCKLEY ABSENT.
Chairman Anderson adjourned the meeting at 9:45 a.m.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
Deborah Rengler
Committee Secretary
APPROVED BY:
Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, Chairman
DATE: