Las Vegas Sheriff Refuses a Judge's Release Order for a Man With 35 Arrests — and the Fight Is Headed to the Nevada Supreme Court

A courtroom order and a jailhouse refusal have put Las Vegas in the middle of a separation-of-powers fight. Las Vegas Justice Court Judge Eric Goodman ordered Joshua Sanchez-Lopez released on electronic monitoring — a GPS ankle-monitor program that lets defendants leave jail — after setting bail at $25,000 with high-level, house-arrest-style monitoring if he posted bond, according to KLAS. Law enforcement officials declined to release him, arguing his criminal history makes him too dangerous to supervise in the community.

The case stems from Sanchez-Lopez's January arrest on a charge of grand larceny of a motor vehicle. He is a felon whose record includes 35 arrests and prior prison time on drug and involuntary manslaughter charges, according to records cited by KLAS, and officials cited prior bench warrants, failures to appear in court and violations of the department's monitoring program in refusing the release. In one 2020 arrest, police say, he ran from officers while armed with a gun. When the department still declined, Goodman ordered it to comply and warned officials they could face contempt sanctions.

The sheriff's office is now asking the Nevada Supreme Court to step in, arguing that state law gives Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill the authority to determine whether supervising a person outside jail would pose an unreasonable risk to public safety. Supporters of that position, including the department's assistant general counsel and the state president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Nevada, frame the dispute the same way: as a question of who the law says controls electronic monitoring. The Nevada Supreme Court has not yet scheduled a hearing on the petition — and until it rules, the standoff between the bench and the sheriff stands.