Inmate loses lawsuit to throw out 60-plus years of Nevada law

Nevada’s Intermediate Court of Appeals has unanimously rejected an inmate’s claim that everything enacted into state law since 1951 is unconstitutional including the criminal laws that put him behind bars.

Jason Jones filed suit against governors dating back to passage of the 1951 law, all current members of the Legislature and the present and past members of the Supreme Court and Intermediate appellate court.

Jones argued that enactment of Senate Bill 182 was unconstitutional because it allowed Nevada Supreme Court justices to sit on the Commission for Revision and Compilation of Nevada Laws.

“Jones reasoned the Nevada Revised Statutes have been invalid since 1951 and all criminal convictions obtained since that time are unconstitutional,” according to the order signed by Judges Michael Gibbons, Bonnie Bulla and Jerome Tao.

The district court disagreed and tossed his suit, ruling that he lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the NRS. The appellate court agreed that Jones’s complaint is “merely a generalized grievance shared by members of the public and does not give rise to standing to challenge the constitutionality of the NRS.”

They pointed out that Jones didn’t even file an opposition to the district court dismissal, “which alone was a sufficient basis for the district court to dismiss Jones’s case.”