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District Court Chief Judge Linda Bell announced trial readiness conferences will get underway July 1. The trial readiness conferences will be held in the lower level arraignment courtroom on Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. with around 15 cases set per calendar to start.

The plan is to first hear the backlogged in-custody cases of those who have invoked their right to a speedy trial and IAD cases, then more recent invoked and IAD cases with out-of-custody invoked, and then invoked cases and older criminal cases.  Grand Juries have already re-commenced with hearing cases and providing returns.

At the Trial Readiness Conference the following things will be addressed:          

  • Preliminary discussions about resolution
  • Whether the case would benefit from a settlement conference
  • Guilty pleas, if the case can be resolved
  • Whether the case will be ready for trial, and if not, will the defendant be waiving speedy trial rights
  • Whether the parties would consider a bench trial
  • Any potential trial concerns, including: out of state witnesses, potential for voir dire to exceed one day, and outstanding discovery issues.                             

If a case is not resolved and will not be ready for trial, it will be returned to the department to be reset. If a case is not resolved and will be ready for trial, the case will be set on a stack for trial at that point six weeks out. To begin, we will be setting 10 cases a week on a trial stack, with calendar-call the week prior. Calendar-call will be managed by one judge. At calendar-call, cases will be set to begin one per day, Monday through Friday. Any cases that the court is unable to set, will either trail the cases set for trial or be moved to the next week. The assigned judge will manage trials that set in their department.  

If lawyers believe their trial needs to have a more urgent priority for some good reason, they can e-mail at BellL@ClarkCountyCourts.us to get the matter on the Trial Readiness Calendar.

All those who enter courthouse facilities are required to wear masks and adhere to social distancing requirements.

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