Pretrial defendants granted electronic monitoring are being forced to sign an unconstitutional contract that strips them of their core constitutional and legal protections as a condition of their release. By forcing unconvicted citizens to surrender their Right to Counsel, Right to Freedom of Association, Right to Individualized Bail Conditions, and the Right to Engage in Lawful Activity within a Private Residence, this contract effectively destroys Due Process and the Presumption of Innocence. Most egregiously, it mandates a total waiver of the Right to be Free from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures, extending this violation to innocent third-party co-residents. LVMPD actively conceals from these family members that they are being tricked into waiving their own Fourth Amendment protections, threatening that failure to comply will result in the immediate and continued detention of their loved one at the Clark County Detention Center.

What the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is Committing
By enforcing these practices, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is committing severe systemic abuses that cross both legal and ethical boundaries:

Color of Law Violations: Operating under "color of law" means an official is using their governmental authority to violate a citizen's constitutional rights. By inventing rules a judge never ordered and forcing citizens to sign away their Bill of Rights under the threat of cage confinement, jail administrators are abusing their state power to bypass the judiciary.

Administrative Extortion: Extortion involves using coercion or threats—in this case, the threat of continued, indefinite incarceration of a loved one—to compel someone to surrender a valuable right. Forcing a family member to give up their home’s privacy rights over the phone as a ransom for a defendant’s judicially ordered release is administrative extortion.

Fraudulent Concealment: By intentionally omitting the legal scope and consequences of the verbal agreement, the department is engaging in a deceptive practice. They are deliberately keeping family members in the dark about the fact that they are welcoming unrestricted police intrusion into their private lives.

Systemic Due Process Subversion: The department is actively subverting the separation of powers. In our justice system, only a judge has the legal authority to set conditions of release. When an executive law enforcement agency rewrites a judicial order to impose its own sweeping punishments, it fractures the constitutional framework of due process.

THE PROBLEM

Under Nevada law (NRS 178.4851), pretrial house arrest exists for only two reasons:

1. to ensure a defendant shows up to court 
2.  to protect public safety.

Under Nevada Supreme Court precedent (Valdez-Jimenez) and NRS 178.4851, pretrial release conditions must be strictly individualized. A judge must look at the specific facts of a case and impose only the least restrictive means necessary to ensure court appearances and public safety.

The United States Supreme Court and lower federal courts have established a massive, bright legal line separating pretrial defendants from probationers and parolees.

• Probationers and Parolees are convicted and have diminished rights
• Pretrial defendants are legally presumed innocent and maintain  full rights and constitutional protections.

Despite this distinction, the LVMPD Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) office is hijacking judicial orders with a coercive contract and an illegal ultimatum: Surrender your constitutional rights,  agree to these restrictions, submit to drug testing or stay locked in a jail cell.

THE INMATE LIE:

The official LVMPD contract forces unconvicted citizens to sign a clause stating,

                                   "As a Clark County inmate, I realize this program is a privilege."

Under constitutional and statutory law, an inmate is strictly defined as a person who is confined in a prison, jail, or correctional facility under the direct physical custody and total control of the state.

A pretrial defendant who is granted bail or release under supervision is legally a free citizen under court-ordered monitoring, not an inmate. They maintain their full constitutional protections, and their private residence remains protected by the Bill of Rights.

A pretrial defendant released from custody by a judge and ordered to house arrest is NOT an inmate, and treating them as such violates foundational constitutional law.

The U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts have repeatedly established that house arrest is a mechanism of conditional liberty—it restricts a person's physical location, but it does not strip them of their status as a protected citizen under the Bill of Rights.

Pretrial release  is not and never has been an administrative privilege granted by the grace of a police department.

ILLEGAL FOURTH AMMENDMENT WAIVERS:

Pretrial defendants must agree to the following before release

" I understand prior to entering EMP, | must waive my Fourth Amendment right to  search and seizure, my rights to the Privacy Act, and my rights to contest extradition, | agree to waive these rights willingly and without reservation. "

"| understand by signing away my United States Constitution Fourth Amendment  Rights, | agree to allow ATI Officers and ail other Law Enforcement Personnel access into my residence and vehicles at any time. I realize  these can occur anytime, day or night and they are necessary for ensuring my compliance with the rules and regulations of the program."

Waiving fundamental Fourth Amendment rights and agreeing to searches by any officer in Las Vegas, anytime they feel like it, is completely unnecessary to ensure appearance at court-ordered hearings and ensuring safety. That is the entire purposed served  by home confinement and the electronic monitoring device.

Binding federal precedent (United States v. Scott, 9th Circuit) explicitly rules that the state cannot force pretrial releasees to surrender their Fourth Amendment protections as a condition of bail. Blanket waivers are for convicted probationers and parolees—not innocent citizens.

Legally and logically, if a constitutionally protected pretrial defendant is following the judge's orders to the letter and showing up to every single court date,  an officer has zero business crossing the threshold into their home without probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed inside the home.

Turning a tracking program into an excuse for random, unannounced home searches by any officer, at any time, strips the "monitoring" out of the program and replaces it with proactive policing. If a defendant is doing everything the court asked, their home should remain their castle.

PROHIBITION OF LEGAL  SUBSTANCES AND REQUIRED TESTING FOR SUBSTANCES

Pretrial defendants are also prohibited from consuming or possessing legal substances and must agree to the following rules:

"understand while | am on EMP, alcoholic beverages are strictly prohibited. |  agree | will refrain from drinking alcoholic beverages. Having alcoholic beverages  in my possession is strictly prohibited. | also understand that | may be tested at any time, day, or night, for alcohol use.  I further agree my refusal to submit to these tests will result in my immediate removal from the program and my return to custody. "

"| understand while | am on EMP, marijuana use and/or possession is strictly prohibited. | agree that | will refrain from using marijuana (this includes medical  marijuana as it is federally illegal). | also understand | may be tested at any time,  day, or night, for marijuana use. | further agree my refusal to submit to these tests will result in my immediate removal from the Electronic Monitoring Program and 
  my return to custody."

Alchohol and Marijuana are legal substances in Nevada. LVMPD cannot prohibit a pretrial defendant from possessing or ingesting a legal substance, simply because that is the will of the LVMPD.

Unless the defendant is under the legal age limit, or  a judge explicitly finds that a Pretrial defendant's  use of legal substances poses a danger to the community in that specific case, the house arrest office cannot use an administrative contract to mandate bodily searches. Drug testing requires a distinct legal justification—it is not an automatic byproduct of being monitored. If the tracker shows the defendant is exactly where they are supposed to be, they are showing up to court, and in compliance with conditions imposed by the court, the administrative office has absolutely no right to demand their fluids nor do they have any authority to tell them they can't engage in a legal activity.

With the exception of Testing,  all other household members who have no involvement with the justice system, are required to agree to not possess or ingest legal substances inside their own home.  or the defendant will not be released from CCDC.

ADDITIONALRESTRICTIONS:

In addition to those rules, the agreement also requires a pretrial defendant to agree to 

• Not associate with felons or ex felons (verbal agreement also required by co-residents)
• no social gatherings at the home (verbal agreement also required by co-residents)
• No more than 2 adults allowed at the house (verbal agreement also required by co- residents)
• Drug testing for illegal substances anytime day or night

 

ADMINISTRATIVE HOSTAGE TACTICS:

The office goes a step further, refusing to even place defendants on the physical release list until all 3rd party adults residing in the home call in and verbally agrees over the phone to be subject to home searches  in addition to a list of other rules. The administration completely conceals the true legal reality from these families, failing to inform them that they are being tricked into permitting searches that explicitly violate their constitutional rights.  Holding a defendant hostage to extort a verbal waiver from an innocent third party has zero basis in Nevada law.

BYPASSING THE PRESENCE OF COUNSEL: Defendants are forced to sign these complex, rights-stripping contracts while locked up alone, completely cutting out their defense attorneys.

 RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED MORE DIMINISHED THAN  THOSE ALREADY CONVICTED

Currently, the diminishment of rights is greater for the accused than the convicted. The pretrial house arrest program imposes the same rules, restrictions, and requirements on presumed-innocent defendants that the Department of Parole and Probation imposes upon convicted parolees and probationers. Yet, unlike Parole and Probation, house arrest carries the added, highly invasive requirements of mandatory GPS tracking devices and forced verbal privacy waivers from innocent household members. When the accused is punished more severely than the convicted, the presumption of innocence is completely dead.

OUR DEMAND
We, the undersigned residents of Nevada, demand an immediate end to these rogue, unconstitutional policies. We call on local leadership to enforce:

• Immediate Contract Revision: Order an immediate rewriting of the house arrest contract to completely remove all aforementioned blanket rules that restrict defendants (Aside from home confinement and GPS Monitoring), and the people other household members from living freely.  The "inmate/privilege" misclassifications, and mandatory Fourth Amendment waivers.
• Uphold the Right to be Free From Unlawful Search and Seizure: Prohibit government intrusion by explicitly preventing law enforcement from entering the home of a fully compliant pretrial defendant. No searches are to be conducted inside a pretrial defendant's residence unless probable cause exists to believe a crime has been committed
• Prohibit Unjustified Alcohol and Drug Testing: Ban the routine, blanket drug testing of all pretrial defendants unless a judge explicitly finds substance abuse to be a direct factor in the case and orders testing as an individualized condition.
• Restrict House Arrest for Non-Violent Offenses: Prohibit the use of electronic monitoring/house arrest as a condition of release for defendants charged with non-violent offenses, unless they have a documented history of failure to appear or the individual poses a verifiable risk to public safety.
• Stop Holding the Release List Hostage: Cease the practice of withholding a judicially approved release based on whether a household member has called the office and agreed to the program rules, and stop forcing innocent family members to verbally waive their constitutional privacy rights under false pretenses.
• Require Counsel Presence: Mandate the presence of a lawyer during the signing of any contract that impedes on the liberties of a defendant who still retains full rights and constitutional protections.
• Implement Budgetary Sanctions and Defunding: Threaten to withhold or restrict discretionary county funding from the LVMPD Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) program budget until the department strips all unconstitutional clauses, "inmate" misclassifications, and third-party extortion tactics from its intake contracts.
• Establish an Independent Pretrial Oversight Committee: Create a civilian-led county oversight board to audit the electronic monitoring program, ensure compliance with NRS 178.4851, and provide a direct channel for families to report administrative coercion.

 

• Enact a County Ordinance Mandating Compliance: Pass a county ordinance explicitly prohibiting any county-funded agency or law enforcement department from altering, expanding, or delaying a judicially ordered pretrial release through secondary administrative contracts.

 

• Issue a Formal Commission Resolution: Issue an official resolution condemning the practice of holding judicially approved releases hostage over third-party verbal waivers, formally demanding that the elected Sheriff immediately instruct jail administration to align their contracts with federal and state law.
• Fund Emergency Public Defender Staffing: Allocate emergency county funds to the Public Defender’s office specifically to embed defense attorneys at the jail during the ATI intake process, ensuring no pretrial defendant is isolated and coerced into signing away their rights without counsel.
• Mandate an Immediate Administrative Audit: Demand the Commission force LVMPD to immediately produce an expedited log of all pretrial defendants currently re-detained for "program non-compliance." This audit must isolate individuals held for technical violations that fall outside the judge's original order (such as failing a random drug test or refusing an unannounced home search).
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  Establish an Emergency Judicial Notification Pipeline: Require county jail administration to immediately forward the names of all defendants flagged in the administrative audit to the Chief Judge of the Eighth Judicial District Court and the Public Defender’s Office. This ensures that emergency modification hearings can be scheduled instantly for defendants arrested under unconstitutional contract terms.
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  Withhold County Legal Defense Funding for Civil Liability: Inform the Sheriff and LVMPD that the Commission will refuse to approve the use of county funds or risk-management pools to settle civil rights lawsuits arising from unauthorized, administrative pretrial arrests. Making the department financially self-sufficient for these specific civil violations forces an immediate internal review of current detainees.
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  Condition Law Enforcement Grants on Retroactive Compliance: Restrict the distribution of any discretionary county grants or supplemental funding to LVMPD until they retroactively review the cases of currently detained pretrial individuals and certify that no citizen is being caged solely for a violation of an unauthorized administrative rule.

• Require Mandatory Retraining on Constitutional Boundaries: Mandate immediate, comprehensive retraining for all LVMPD Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) officers and jail personnel regarding the precise scope of their role and the strict limitations of their administrative authority. This training must explicitly emphasize that an administrative office has no legal power to expand judicial orders, and must clearly delineate the bright legal line separating the rights of a presumed-innocent pretrial defendant from those of a convicted probationer or parolees. The Commission should condition all future departmental training grants on the implementation of this curriculum.
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