Race and
Ethnic Fairness
State:
Committee/Report Name: Nevada Supreme Court Task Force Implementation Committee for the Elimination of Racial, Economic and Gender Bias in the Justice System (1999). The Interim Report was authored by Elgin Simpson, Executive Director of the Task Force with contributions from the Task Force members.
Number of
Committee Members: 45 members
Number of
Subcommittees: 8 subcommittees; Quality and Access to Justice;
Juvenile Matters; Jury Issues; Pre-arraignment Issues; Law Enforcement Matters;
Sentencing Decisions; Relationship to Counsel; and Death Penalty Cases.
Chair/Co-Chairs:
Richard Z. Winget, Las Vegas Metropolitan
Police Department; Co-Chair-
Methods
Used: Assist the law school with their intended programs of requiring
students in their first year to complete 50 to 60 hours of community service;
their family court clinic programs for low income litigants; their small claims
clinics enabling greater access to litigants in the Justice Courts; and overall
support for other clinic programs; keep students aware of racial, economics and
gender bias within the court systems; Continue liaison with the Governor’s
Juvenile Justice Commission in order to assure that policies adopted in the
criminal justice agencies will eliminate race, gender and economic bias to the
extent possible; Continue liaison with juvenile courts and juvenile facilities
to determine if policies, procedures, and programs can be crafted to eliminate
disproportional minority youth confinement; Collect existing information from
agencies and organizations within the state for dissemination; diversity
training programs; modernize interpreters program statewide; disseminate
demographic information regarding juvenile justification from arrest to
disposition; Collect data on jury source lists and work with jury commissioners
and court personnel to assure representation of all segments of the community;
lobby the legislature for the purpose of eliminating all statutory exemptions
from jury service; collect data on juror compensation, child care, parking;
educate the public regarding their civil duty concerning jury service; Adopt
American Bar Association Jury Standards pertaining to jury use, management and
utilization of time; include a greater cross-section of jury pools from DVM
records, unemployment records, welfare records and voter registration lists.
Expand the court’s authority concerning bail release to include third party
custodian release and use of halfway house; modernize the Bail Reform Act;
Encourage and assist law enforcement agency directors in reporting demographic
information of their employees; Advocate a statewide system to monitor charging
practices of district and city attorneys and report them to the committee; Seek
police/sheriff departments in obtaining demographic information of police
misconduct; Encourage law enforcement agencies and district attorneys within
the state to encourage maintenance of demographic data on all aspects of the
criminal justice system; Coordinate public seminars to educate the public on
issues concerning law enforcement and the judicial system.; Utilize contract
researchers to validate the Probation success probability scale; Encourage
local county governments to allocate appropriate funding resources to ensure that
the public defender’s office provide effective assistance of counsel to
indigent defendants at all levels; Provide interpreter services at both
detention facilities and public defender offices.
Topics
and Recommendations
Perception
Recommendations
1. Establish
a committee to monitor criminal and civil justice practice across the state of
2. Create
Statistical analysis Centers in the Departments of Criminal Justice at UNR and
UNLV to compile and analyze data on criminal and civil justice practices in
Northern and
3. The Board
of Regents should establish a
4. The
Law School should establish specific programs that require law students to
participate in programs designed to provide legal services to
5. Initiate
quarterly public forums to discuss issues of law enforcement, prosecution,
criminal justice practices, and policies in
6. Adopt the
recommendation contained in the Judicial Assessment commission report.
7. Require the
administrators of district, justice, and municipal courts to provide annual
reports to the standing committee containing the race, gender, age, and salary of
each employee such as judges, court personnel, administrators, clerical,
maintenance personnel, and service providers.
8. Require the
Sheriff, Chief of Police, and the director of each adult and juvenile justice
related state and local agency to provide annual reports to the standing
committee containing the race, gender, age, and salary of each employee.
Clarify that the Chief Justice of
the Nevada Supreme Court is, and should be considered as, the Chief Judicial
Administrator for all the state courts.
Access
Recommendations
1. Encourage courts in all counties to secure adequate
funding for providing interpreters at detention centers and providing access to
interpreters for pubic defenders. (See also Quality of Representation # 4)
2. Develop and
implement a policy requiring the public defender to identify non-English speaking
individuals and the language spoken. (See also Quality of Representation # 5)
Juries
Recommendations
1. Disseminate public service announcements, brochures, newspaper advertisements, and posters encouraging jury service.
2. Examine
means for the expansion of jury source lists.
3. Eliminate
all statutory exemptions contained in
4. Study means
to improve juror utilization statewide by ensuring that jurors’ time is not
wasted.
5. Monitor
racial and ethnic composition of panels and responding to a jury summons.
6. Create a
separate committee to study jury compensation, including but not limited to per
diem, child support, and parking.
7. Encourage the judiciary to review and adopt
the 1993 American Bar Association Jury Standards pertaining to juror use and
management.
Courtroom Experience
Recommendations
1. Increase financial support for Public
Defender’s offices in order to secure additional attorneys, investigators and
staff.
2. Require the Public Defender’s office to
initiate an “on call” duty attorney to see any individual arrested or detained
during the first 24 hours following arrest.
3. Require the following in order to ensure that
counsel is providing “effective assistance of counsel.”
a. Establish video conferencing between the
b. Recommend that the Pubic Defender’s Offices
be required to document frequency and time spent with clients and to
differentiate between in-custody and out-of-custody contact.
c. Recommend that judges include in the plea canvass the amount of time a lawyer has spent with the defendant prior to the first appearance.
d. Require public defenders to have adequate
contact with their client prior to the first appearance.
e. Mandate that attorneys not be allowed to
withdraw from a case with a potential punishment of life imprisonment or death
after the preliminary hearing without overwhelming justification.
f. Develop and implement a policy pertaining to
counsel’s “readiness” prior to proceeding to trial.
g. Ensure that the public defender’s office is
accountable by ensuring that the investigation and preparation of a client’s
case begin reasonably and promptly after arrest.
4. Encourage courts in all counties to secure
adequate funding for providing interpreters at detention centers and providing
access to interpreters for pubic defenders.
5. Develop and implement a policy requiring the
public defender to identify non-English speaking individuals and the language
spoken.
6. Require that public defenders see their
clients within 48 hours of arrest. Implement a policy that ensures clients are
able to contact their attorneys by telephone.
7. Ensure that indigent persons are entitled to effective assistance of counsel at all stages of the criminal justice process, including post convictions proceedings, especially for offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment.
8. Require that any participation by judges in
criminal negotiations be on the record including any “in chambers”
conversations between judge and counsel.
9. Require the district attorney to provide to
the Standing Committee, Task Force or other appropriate body a detailed
description of the procedures followed in reaching a decision as to whether to
prosecute a homicide as a capital case.
10. Encourage
the District Attorneys throughout the state, in conjunction with the annual
District Attorney’s meeting to discuss and share procedures for capital cases
in order to ensure that the process is fair and consistent throughout the
state.
Education
Recommendations
1. Create cultural sensitivity training programs
and require judges, court administrators, court bailiffs, court clerks, in each
county and in each court to attend on an annual basis.
Recommendations
1. Continue to update sensitivity and cultural training for all police academy recruits and offices, including all administrators from sheriffs to sergeants.
Recommendations
1. Implement
an educational program regarding the public perception of the judicial system.
2. Implement
school mentorship programs with bar associations local
law enforcement agencies throughout the state providing the opportunity at the
earliest age for students to learn how they can help in equalizing the
administration of justice.
3. Require every county in the state to maintain
demographic data on all aspects of the justice system.
Criminal Justice
Recommendations
1. Appoint a committee consisting of judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, sociologists. Penologists, criminalists and law enforcement officials to examine the methods employed in releasing arrestees on own recognizance to ensure that the least restrictive condition of release is employed.
2. Encourage
judges to consider the provisions of the federal system under the Bail Reform
Act, which provide that an individual should always be considered for release
unless the prosecutor, by clear and convincing evidence, demonstrates that
conditions or a combination of conditions cannot be met which will ensure the
individual’s appearance at all future court appearances.
3. Increase
the use of third part custodian releases to decrease reliance on financial
ability.
4. Increase
intensive supervision programs for borderline arrestees to lessen the impact of
economic considerations on those least likely to e able to afford monetary
bail.
5. Consider
release into halfway houses of individuals awaiting court proceedings in order
to maximize opportunities for continued employment.
6. Increase
the use of house arrest and consider waver of fees to decrease disparity based
upon ability to pay.
7. Collect
data to be provided to the standing committee, police, and judges identifying
arrestees release by age, race, gender, jurisdiction, and language ability to
assist in designing a release system, which is not dependent upon ability to
afford bail.
8. Revise the
booking and citation forms to include English or non-English speaking ability of
arrestees.
9. Create a
court interpreter’s office in each county to facilitate the non-English
translation for those individuals arrested and detained.
10. Validate
the
11. Scrutinize
initial charging to prohibit “stacking” of charges and to make sure that
alleged charges are reasonable given the circumstances of the case to prevent
unreasonable bail.
12. Encourage
the Nevada State Legislature to review the feasibility of setting bail for the
most aggravated, single act or course conduct.
13. Require
that all criminal defendants be formally charged within 48 hours of arrest
whenever possible. Continuances beyond 48 hours should be granted by the court
only if “good cause” shall be enunciated fully on the record and evaluated
completely by the court.
14. Examine the
differences between initial charges filed and convicted to determine impact of
charging practices.
15. Request the
Nevada State Legislature to conduct a study reviewing the feasibility of
increasing the use of citations or summonses rather than jailing individuals
for nonviolent felony offenses.
16. Encourage police departments in every city and
county to maintain demographic information concerning internal affairs division
complaints against or involving minorities.
Recommendations
1. Empirically validate, through an independent organization, the primary instrument used in the Pre-sentence Investigation Report to determine the recommended sentence for convicted felons, the Probation Success Probability Scale.
2. Require
that defense counsel be granted access to the PSP scale and be afforded the
opportunity to prepare a written response to the judge for defense counsel.
3. The
legislators and criminal justice official clearly articulate the purposes for
punishment of criminal defendants.
4. That the
State Legislature and the Governor’s Sentencing Commission study and consider
the adoption of sentencing guidelines as a means of eliminating racial,
economic, and geographical disparities.
5. Examine
alternatives to incarceration such as boot camps, drug courts, varying levels
of supervised probation, and diversion programs to determine whether they are
being utilized in a nondiscriminatory manner.
6. Employ the
Judicial Access Commission recommendation “The department of Parole and
Probation should administer transitional housing, day treatment centers,
assessment centers and expand its use of electronic monitoring, intensive
supervision and counseling services.”
7. Implement
an independent study on the predictors of recidivism among
8. Study case
processing and case outcomes for different groups of offenses to empirically
determine the nature and magnitude of racial, ethnic or socio-economic
disparities.
9. Encourage
the legislature to revise the death penalty statutes in order to mandate uniformity
within the state of the decisions and methods for seeking the death penalty for
those eligible pursuant to NRS 200.033.
10. Require
annually that district attorneys provide to the Standing Committee a detailed
description of each homicide in their county for the proceeding calendar year.
11. Require
that the Standing Committee publish annually a report on the death penalty in
12. Adopt the American Bar Association Section of
Individual Rights and Responsibilities.
Recommendations
1. Require the Governor’s Sentencing Commission to report annually to the standing committee, the judiciary, and the executive and legislative branches of government, the rate and length of incarceration by race and gender, and incarceration rates based upon ability to afford retained counsel.
Recommendations
1. Develop an ongoing
liaison between the Task Force and Governor’s Juvenile Justice Commission.
2. Continue to
exchange information between the task and Commission as it relates to juvenile
matters.
3. Inform the
Nevada Supreme Court, Governor, State Legislature, and most importantly the
community of the collaboration and coordination that has taken place between
the Task Force and Commission concerning juvenile justice issues.
4. Ensure that
law enforcement agencies are creating and implementing early diversion and intervention
programs and measures to address disproportionate minority youth confinement.
5. Compile a
list of promising early intervention and diversion programs and disseminate the
list to
6. Encourage
the court, local law enforcement agencies, and the state and local juvenile
justice related agencies to strive toward a diverse workforce.
7. Propose
joint cultural diversity programs that strive toward achieving cultural proficiency
and competency of the participants. The joint training will take place between
law enforcement, parole and probation offices, and child services and community
leaders including state legislators, county commissioners, and city council
members.
8. Create
diversity training programs that strive toward achieving cultural proficiency
and competency for personnel associated with state and local juvenile justice
related agencies. Identify and address shortcomings of the court and state and
local juvenile justice related agencies regarding this issue.
9. Examine
Practices for the feasibility of releasing juveniles to parents at the point of
arrest.
10. Examine the
relationship between counsel and their juvenile clients.
11. Explore
a mechanism for an interpreting system that takes into account the generational
and cultural differences as they pertain to
12. Disseminate
demographic information regarding race, gender, culture, and economic status of
youthful offenders, their parents and legal guardians to the judiciary, public
defender, and prosecutor in order for them to make informed decisions and
respond appropriately to the various needs of
13. Encourage
the judiciary to examine the certification of juveniles as adults in order to
determine if other alternatives have been provided to the juvenile offender.
14. Implement
early diversion and intervention programs that address the needs of female
juvenile offenders.
15. Examine the adequacy of the present data
collection systems for youth in the juvenile justice system at the state and
local level.
Recommendations
1. Any Citizen review board be independent of the agencies it reviews. Such review board should be given clear jurisdictional guidelines to avoid conflict with other reviewing bodies.
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