New appeals court could cost Nevada Supreme Court 2 justices

By Kyle Roerink

Friday, April 17, 2015 | 2:35 p.m.

The Nevada Supreme Court has a staffing problem. And it can thank the new Nevada Court of Appeals.

Two seats on the state’s high court will be revoked if the Legislature does nothing between now and the 2017 session.

The situation is a result of a 1997 law that has gone unmentioned in public debate since Nevada voters approved the three-judge Court of Appeals in the November 2014 elections.

The law says that if voters approve an appeals court, the state must eliminate the seats of two justices once their terms expire.

The Nevada Appeal newspaper in Carson City first broke the news and reported the law would eliminate the seats of Justices Nancy Saitta and Michael Douglas when their terms expire on Jan. 1, 2019, reducing the number of justices to five.

The Supreme Court did not respond to interview requests today.

When the law passed 18 years ago, the courts did not foresee the nearly 2,000 case backlog faced by the state Supreme Court.

But Chief Justice Jim Hardesty expressed concerns that the new Court of Appeals might not fully offset the impact of removing two Supreme Court justices, the Nevada Appeal reported.

To correct the problem, the Legislature could add language into an existing bill or wait until the 2017 session to pass a fix.