Before Justices Saitta, Douglas and Hardesty. Opinion by Justice Hardesty.
In a companion case to Sicor v. Sacks, the Court considered whether the district court properly denied a post-voir dire motion to change venue because of adverse pretrial publicity in the ongoing endoscopy cases in Las Vegas. The Court expanded the analysis it set forth in National Collegiate Ass’n v. Tarkanian, 113 Nev. 610, 939 P.2d 1049 (1997), regarding a pre-voir dire motion to change venue based on pre-trial publicity by adding four factors relevant to post-voir dire motions to the six-factor test established in Tarkanian. The ten factors for consideration in a post-voir dire motion to change venue based upon pre-trial publicity are: “(1) the nature and extent of pretrial publicity; (2) the size of the community; (3) the nature and gravity of the lawsuit; (4) the status of the plaintiff and defendant in the community; [ ] (5) the existence of political overtones in the case. . . . (6) the amount of time that separated the release of the publicity and the trial. . . . (7) the care used and the difficulty encountered in selecting a jury, (8) the familiarity of potential jurors with pretrial publicity, (9) the effect of the publicity on the jurors, and (10) the challenges exercised by the party seeking a change of venue.” In applying the ten-factor test, the Court stressed that it is not necessary that the empaneled jury be completely ignorant of the underlying case but that, instead, the jury must be capable of being impartial. The Court then specifically applied the ten factors to the endoscopy jury selection process and concluded that the empaneled jury in this case was sufficiently impartial to provide a reasonable likelihood of a fair trial, despite a fair amount of pretrial publicity and some knowledge of the case among many of the jurors. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court’s denial of Sicor’s motion for a change of venue. (Seth T. Floyd, Associate in the Las Vegas office of McDonald Carano Wilson).
