IN BRIEF

NEVADA SUPREME COURT

Justices won't dismiss Halverson charges

The Nevada Supreme Court denied embattled District Judge Elizabeth Halverson's attempt to get charges that she harassed employees and illegally communicated with jurors dismissed.

Halverson sought to have the charges dropped because she said the state Judicial Discipline Commission delayed filing formal charges against her, according to a Supreme Court order filed Wednesday.

But the Supreme Court ruled that Halverson's due process rights haven't been violated and denied her request.

The Judicial Discipline Commission has filed a formal complaint against Halverson alleging she mistreated staff, slept through trials and couldn't adequately conduct trials. It is scheduled to hold five-day hearings on the matter beginning April 14.

Halverson has denied the charges.

She has been on suspension with pay since July. She has also filed for re-election to her seat on the bench.

VICTIM TREATED, THEN BOOKED

LV police officer shoots suspect in cemetery

A police officer shot a 37-year-old man late Thursday at a Las Vegas cemetery, and the man is expected to recover.

Las Vegas police said someone called 911 around 11:40 p.m. to report a man brandishing a gun near the intersection of Sunrise Road and Eastern Avenue.

Officers responded and were directed to Davis Memorial Park at 6200 S. Eastern Ave., where they saw an armed suspect inside the cemetery grounds, just east of the wall along Eastern.

Police said the suspect was pointing a pistol at his head. Officers ordered the suspect to drop the weapon and surrender, police said, but he did not comply.

"The suspect then pointed his weapon at officers," according to a police statement. "An officer fired one shot at the suspect, striking him in the lower extremities."

The suspect, who was later identified as Joshua Santiago, was treated by paramedics and taken to a hospital. Police described him as a "local resident."

Santiago was arrested on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer and will be booked into the Clark County Detention Center upon his release from the hospital.

In keeping with department policy, police are withholding for 48 hours the name of the officer who shot Santiago.

SEARCH WARRANT SERVED

Arrest made in slaying of man left in lot

Las Vegas police have made an arrest in the death of a man whose body was found March 6 by workers cleaning up a vacant lot.

According to a police statement released Friday, detectives served a search warrant Wednesday in an apartment in the 2200 block of West Bonanza Road near North Rancho Drive, just south of where the victim's body was found, and arrested Jerry Nash.

Clark County Detention Center records show that Nash, 44, is being held on charges of murder and possession of cocaine.

The victim's body was found in the 700 block of North Tonopah Drive, near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Owens Avenue.

Police later released a sketch of the victim in an attempt to identify him. According to a statement that accompanied the sketch, an autopsy was performed March 7, "and trauma was discovered indicative of homicide."

On Friday, police said the victim has tentatively been identified as a 47-year-old man. They said officials with the Clark County coroner's office would not release his name until his identity had been confirmed and his relatives had been notified.