District Court judges ask for backup, get half a loaf

Saturday, May 19, 2007 | 6:50 a.m.

CARSON CITY - District Court judges in Clark County, who lean on the state parole and probation division for advice on how harshly to sentence individuals convicted of misdemeanors, have been hoping the stretched-thin division would get more state money to do the job.

On Friday legislators said they could help by only half.

Because of a lack of staff, the division previously suspended writing so-called pre-sentence reports on misdemeanor violators. The reports would give a judge the history of the individual and a recommendation on the appropriate sentence.

Without this information, it's tough for judges to determine whether the convicted person should be placed on probation or sentenced to jail for up to a year.

Chief District Judge Kathy Hardcastle and others in March urged the Legislature to appropriate enough money to hire more specialists to write the reports for those convicted in Clark County.

But a legislative budget subcommittee, on the recommendation of the state division, Friday approved adding only five pre-sentence writers in Clark County over the next two years.

After the vote, Assemblyman David Parks, D-Las Vegas, said the judges in Clark County wanted 10 new employees. "Are we going to get visits from the judges?" he said.

John A. Gonska, chief of the parole and probation division, replied : "I can't guarantee that. I don't think they are going to be overly happy." But he said he would meet with the District Court judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers to brief them.

Hardcastle could not be reached for comment. But she told the budget committees in March the state division was under funded and understaffed and cannot provide pre-sentence reports.

Gonska had asked for 10 new pre-sentence writers but acknowledged he had no empirical evidence to justify 10. He reduced the request to three.

To determine Nevada's needs, a legislative budget subcommittee authorized an $85,000 study of other state's staffing levels, including the number of pre-sentence reports written by one individual and their quality compared with Nevada's.

Pre-sentence report writers in Nevada average 16 a month.

If the study shows the need for more officers, the division will be able to approach the Legislative Interim Finance Committee for more money.

Rick Combs, the legislative fiscal analyst who examined the budget of the parole and probation division, said the subcommittee approved an extra specialist in each of the coming two fiscal years. The other three writers would allow the division to tackle the gross misdemeanor pre-sentence reports.

Combs told the subcommittee the division has caught up on writing pre-sentence reports for felons. At present, he said there are only one or two continuances in District Court a week because the pre-sentence reports are not ready. That's down from the 20 in the past.