Cornejo (Cesar) v. Dist. Ct. (State) ( 2014 )

 Thompson, 99 Nev. 358, 360, 662 P.2d 1338, 1339 (1983). We decline to
exercise that discretion in this case for three reasons.
First, petitioner waited over 5 months after the district court
denied his petition to seek relief in this court, thus suggesting no urgency,
strong necessity, or important issue that requires our intervention. Cf.
Schuster v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 123 Nev. 187, 190, 160 P.3d 873,
875 (2007) ("Where the circumstances establish urgency or strong
necessity, or an important issue of law requires clarification and public
policy is served by this court's exercise of its original jurisdiction, this
court may exercise its discretion to consider a petition for extraordinary
relief.").
Second, petitioner has not provided an adequate appendix. He
has not provided a copy of the order of the respondent judge, which
appears to have been entered on April 23, 2014, or all parts of the record
before the respondent judge "that may be essential to understand the
matters set forth in the petition." NRAP 21(a)(4). For example, petitioner
has not provided the indictment, the grand-jury transcript (which appears
to have been filed in the district court on March 12, 2014), or a transcript
of the April 14, 2014, hearing in the district court on the pretrial habeas
petition.' The omission of the written order and necessary parts of the
'Petitioner indicates that the petition will be supplemented "with
necessary transcripts once they become available." There is no indication,
however, that petitioner has requested the preparation of any transcripts,
and the relevant hearing occurred more than 5 months ago, so there has
been more than sufficient time for petitioner to obtain the transcript.
According to the petition, the State filed a return to a writ issued by
the district court. It is unclear whether the return included a substantive
continued on next page . . .
SUPREME COURT
Of
NEVADA
2
(0) 1947A
district court record make it difficult for this court to entertain the
petition. In particular, we cannot evaluate the basis for the district court's
decision and whether it reflects a clearly erroneous interpretation or
application of the law, see State v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court
(Armstrong), 127 Nev. „ 267 P.3d 777, 780 (2011) (defining
manifest abuse of discretion), or whether, assuming there was any error or
omission in the prosecutor's instructions to the grand jury under NRS
172.095(2), a properly instructed grand jury could have found slight or
marginal evidence to return an indictment on the child-abuse-and-neglect
charges, see Clay, 129 Nev. at , 305 P.3d at 906.
Third, the limited documents provided could support the
conclusion that the district court did not manifestly abuse its discretion.
Those documents indicate that the prosecutor provided the grand jury
with instructions on the specific elements of the public offenses that they
were considering as required by NRS 172.095(2). In particular, the grand
jury was instructed on the elements of child abuse and neglect using the
statutory language set forth in NRS 200.508(1); the definition of "abuse or
neglect" as set forth in NRS 200.508(4)(a); 2 and a definition of "open and
gross lewdness," see NRS 201.210; Young v. State, 109 Nev. 205, 215, 849
P.2d 336, 343 (1993); Ranson v. State, 99 Nev. 766, 767-68, 670 P.2d 574,
. . . continued
response to the pretrial petition as petitioner has not included it in his
appendix.
2 Theinstruction did not include the references to the statutes that
define the various types of "abuse or neglect," but those citations would
not have added anything substantive to the instruction.
SUPREME COURT
OF
NEVADA
3
(U) 1947A 914E9:m
575 (1983); see also Berry v. State, 125 Nev. 265, 280-83, 212 P.3d 1085,
1095-98 (2009), overruled on other grounds by State v. Castaneda, 126
Nev. , 245 P.3d 550 (2010), which is an offense that constitutes "sexual
abuse" for purposes of NRS 200.508(4)(a) (incorporating definition of
"sexual abuse" set forth in NRS 432B.100). Although petitioner suggests
that the statutory definitions of "physical injury" and "mental injury" that
apply to NRS 200.508 are technical and do not reflect a layperson's
common understanding of those terms such that an instruction on the
statutory definitions would be required under NRS 172.095(2), cf. Clay,
129 Nev. at , 305 P.3d at 905 (addressing need to provide statutory
definition of "physical injury" under NRS 200.508), it is not clear that
those provisions are at issue in this case. Rather, this case appears to be
based on "sexual abuse" to establish "abuse or neglect," not "physical
injury" or "mental injury." While petitioner indicates that consistent with
Clay, the prosecutor had to provide the statutory definition of "sexual
abuse" in order to comply with NRS 172.095(2), the prosecutor did instruct
the grand jury on the definition of open and gross lewdness, which
constitutes "sexual abuse" for purposes of NRS 200.508(4)(a). see NRS
432B.100. Thus, without resolving the issue on the merits, clear legal
error suggesting a manifest abuse of discretion does not appear from our
review of the record provided.
For these reasons, we
ORDER the petition DENIED.
Pickering
Saitta
SUPREME COURT
OF
NEVADA
4
(0) I947A
cc: Hon. Elizabeth Goff Gonzalez, District Judge
Clark County Public Defender
Attorney General/Carson City
Clark County District Attorney
Eighth District Court Clerk
SUPREME COURT
OF
NEVADA
5
() I947A 41DAD