But through the 2020 fiscal year, the court has taken significant steps to cut down its substantial and well-documented backlog of pending cases. According to the Nevada Judiciary’s 2020 annual report, the court’s backlog of cases fell to 1,688 at the end of the fiscal year, the lowest level in the last five years and down from the more than 2,000 pending cases reported at the end of the 2019 fiscal year.

The Nevada Supreme Court accepted the results of the 2020 general election on Tuesday, making official the results of a contentious election that has sparked numerous legal challenges seeking to cast doubt on the integrity of the electoral process in the Silver State.

So far, the PAC has started a TV advertising campaign aimed at boosting the candidacy of state Supreme Court candidate Douglas Herndon, an Eighth Judicial District Court judge running against Democratic Assemblyman and attorney Ozzie Fumo for the open seat on the seven-member court. Herndon’s political affiliation is described as “Republican” by the Reno Gazette-Journal.

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state cannot reshuffle existing water rights to prevent environmental damage, despite recognizing a legal principle that requires the government to preserve natural resources for future generations.

In a three-justice opinion issued Tuesday, members of the court reversed a lower court’s decision and ruled in favor of Jorgen Nielsen in an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss a defamation claim filed by Wynn in April 2018. The lawsuit was filed after the former hair stylist went on the record for a Wall Street Journal investigation into Wynn’s alleged sexual harassment against employees that ultimately contributed to his departure from the publicly traded casino company.

The Nevada Board of Pardons Commissioners, chaired by Gov. Steve Sisolak, voted unanimously to approve a resolution pardoning the decriminalized offense. Records show that 15,592 were convicted of the misdemeanor from 1986 through the end of 2016, and there were 31,124 arrested for the offense. Recreational use became legal in 2017.

A substantial number of high-profile races will eventually be decided out of Tuesday’s election, including Republican challengers to Democratic Reps. Susie Lee and Steven Horsford, both who represent swing districts and have attracted a broad field of GOP candidates.

This year, two of the seven Supreme Court seats in Nevada are up for nonpartisan election — those of Justice Mark Gibbons and Chief Justice Kris Pickering. Gibbons, who served as chief justice in 2008, 2014 and 2019, has announced that he will be retiring from the bench and will not seek re-election this year.

The order issued Thursday by the Nevada Supreme Court reverses a Clark County District Court’s decision and ends the possibility that Tarkanian, the son of legendary UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, could again win damages from a political opponent over ads accusing him of setting up “13 fake charities that preyed on vulnerable seniors.”

According to the Nevada Judiciary’s 2019 annual report, which was released Thursday, the state’s two highest courts had 2,042 appealed cases pending at the end of the 2019 fiscal year — a slight decrease from last year’s record-high backlog of 2,201 pending cases.

Good morning, and welcome to Indy 2020, a biweekly newsletter focused on the 2020 presidential election in Nevada. A reminder that email subscribers get early access to this newsletter, so be sure to subscribe and tell your friends.

Members of BIDS, who were announced on Tuesday, are charged with helping keep a standard level of legal representation throughout the state for anyone in financial need who is charged with a crime. The board is made up of 13 voting members and three non-voting members, who are appointed to three-year terms.

Associate Chief Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court Kristina Pickering will seek re-election in 2020. Chief Justice Mark Gibbons will not. The chief presiding criminal judge for Clark County’s District Court, Douglas Herndon, confirmed last week that he will seek a seat on the high court in 2020.

Fumo, a criminal defense attorney whose experience includes work as one of O.J. Simpson’s defense attorneys when the former football player appealed his 2008 kidnapping and armed robbery conviction, was first elected to the swingy Assembly District 21 in Las Vegas in 2016.

An opinion authored by a three-member panel composed of Justices Kristina Pickering, Mark Gibbons and James Hardesty last week reversed a lower court’s conviction of Ian Andre Hager, a Reno man convicted of violating a state law that prohibits individuals adjudicated as mentally ill or are found to be unlawfully using illegal drugs from possessing firearms.

According to a copy of Sisolak’s official calendar, the new governor held a slew of meetings and calls throughout January and the first week of February with education and business leaders, union heads, one Trump administration official and with California billionaire and Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer.

In 2014, the backers of the proposed constitutional amendment creating a Court of Appeals in part based their arguments for passage on the need to reduce the growing backlog of cases in Nevada’s highest court.