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Regional Justice Court Observation

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I conducted my observation at the Regional Justice Court in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is located at 200 Lewis Ave. I was able to see the morning docket of the Honorable Judge Diana Sullivan, who happens to be one of four pilot judges for the new Nevada Pretrial Risk Assessment (NPR). I went on the morning of Monday March 20th, to observe both her 8am docket and her 9:30am docket. The 8am docket contained initial appearances and arraignments for the in-custody suspects. There were a few status checks and arraignments for out of custody suspects as well. The 9:30 docket was entirely out of custody and there were a few initial appearances and preliminary hearings.
Who you would expect to be in the courtroom were there. There was the Honorable Judge …show more content…

On this day he should have completed his mandatory 25 hours of community service and paid a fine. He had not done that however. He was called on and he reported that he had only done 5 hours. He was trying to explain why he hadn’t done his hours but his english was broken and he wasn’t making any sense. His girlfriend then took it upon herself to stand up and explain for him. He had just gotten out of prison and needed to get a driver’s license to volunteer. Because his residence was in California, but he was volunteering in Nevada where his girlfriend and new baby were; he needed a license in both states. That was what led to the late start, he had only had both licenses for a week. In that week he did 5 hour of volunteering. Although Judge Sullivan had notes saying it was his last chance, she had a different judge step in for her that day. The girlfriend was arguing that the previous judge had not warned it was his last chance, just that he needed some hours. Judge Sullivan erred on the side of caution since it wasn’t her personal notes and gave the defendant three more months to work off his fines through volunteering along with his mandated …show more content…

The scoring rubric was based on the less points the better. The categories included other open cases, age at first arrest, prior misdemeanor convictions, prior felony/gross misdemeanor cases, prior violent crimes, prior failure to appears, substance abuse, and then there was a section for mitigating factors. The convictions were limited to the last ten years. Judge Sullivan showed me an example of a man who we had seen in court that day. He had eight prior felony convictions but seven of them were ten-twelve years ago. He had a point against him for age of first arrest and another for one felony conviction. This led his final score to be a two putting him at a very low risk. Judge Sullivan compared this to a man who we had also seen who had one charge of felony possession. That one conviction happened to be a young age, a felony, a violent crime, and included substance abuse. This man also had a pending case against him and no mitigating factors so he was deemed a high risk. She showed me that although the second man had more stacked against him, she would probably have released him on bail since it was a conceal carry charge. Whereas the first man, the gap of no crime for ten years raised her suspicion. Her first instinct was that he spent the last ten years in prison. It worried her that the criteria had to be loosened because the first test didn’t

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