Las Vegas Legal Blog

The police come to your hotel room, enter, and search it without your permission. Someone left illegal drugs in the hotel room -- maybe it was you, maybe it was the last guest, maybe it was someone else in your group with whom you traveled to Las Vegas. That doesn't matter, at the moment, because you're the one who gets back to the hotel room first, and they arrest you on drug charges.

Was that search illegal? It probably was if the police did not have probable cause and did not have a search warrant. Generally speaking, they must have a reason to think that a crime is happening or that they'll find evidence, they have to ask for a warrant from the court and then they can enter under the authority of the warrant.

You walk into a hotel in Las Vegas, and you instantly notice that they have security cameras all over the place. Behind the desk. In the lobby. Near the elevators. In the halls. Everywhere you turn, you see cameras watching your every move.

You decide that this must mean the hotel sees a lot of crime and doesn't offer a safe place for you to stay. You switch to another establishment, where you don't see any cameras. You take this as a sign that crime levels remain low and they don't need the cameras, so you feel safer and you book a room.

It doesn't matter if you live in Las Vegas or are visiting to have some fun, there's a good chance you'll regularly consider yourself a pedestrian. For example, many people spend a lot of time walking up and down the Strip, visiting one casino after the next.

Even with a variety of safety features in place, you're still at risk of being injured in a pedestrian-car accident. There are many common causes of these accidents, including:

• Distracted driving: If a driver is looking at the bright lights of the casinos, as opposed to the road, they're more likely to strike a pedestrian.
• Speeding: With so many pedestrians in the area, drivers must take extra caution in regard to how fast they're driving.
• Failure to yield to pedestrians: Drivers are expected to yield to pedestrians at crosswalks, giving them the ability to safely make it to the other side of the road.
• Failure to use turn signals: If a driver neglects to use a turn signal, a pedestrian may get the wrong impression about what they're doing.
• Disregard for traffic conditions: Las Vegas is well known for heavy traffic, which can result in aggressive and reckless driving. This increases the risk of an accident with another vehicle or pedestrian.
• Driving under the influence: Many people love Las Vegas because of their ability to party at all times of the day and night. There's nothing wrong with having a good time, but drinking and driving puts everyone at risk.

You get arrested and charged with a crime in Nevada, and your case goes before a grand jury. What does this mean for you? What is the grand jury trying to decide? If this is your first time dealing with the criminal justice system, you may face a fair amount of confusion that can make everything seem far more complicated than it really is. It's important to know where you stand and how the process works.

A petit jury