3 Separate Jurisdictions Cover Las Vegas Breach-of-Peace Crimes

Have you been arrested in Las Vegas and charged with a crime against the public peace? You should know that people in Las Vegas are subject to state, city, and county breach-of-peace laws. Here are the three ways you could be charged with a breach-of-peace crime in Las Vegas.

  1. City Offenses Against Public Peace in Las Vegas

The city of Las Vegas enforces ordinances involving offenses against public peace. Title 10, Division V of the Las Vegas Municipal Code outlines the offenses covered by the ordinances. Offenses involving lewd or offensive public behavior fall under the city’s public decency laws.

Las Vegas offenses against public peace fall into one of the following four categories:

  • Solicitation
  • Conduct at athletic events
  • Unlawful assembly
  • Pedestrian or vehicular interference

Solicitation is begging, asking, or pleading for money or other gifts. Solicitation is a misdemeanor if a person engages in solicitation at any transportation stop in Las Vegas, on any public-transport vehicle, in any parking structure, within 20 feet of an automatic teller machine, or within ten feet of the entrances and exits to any publicly open buildings.

Disruption of an athletic event in Las Vegas occurs when a person disrupts or interrupts a sporting event. Additional prohibited athletic-event-related conduct in the Las Vegas ordinances include:

  • Throwing of drinks or any other item into arena
  • Discharging fireworks or firecrackers
  • Engaging in physical altercations with attendees, officials, or athletes
  • Bringing glass containers and/or alcohol into an athletic venue

To be guilty of unlawful assembly in Las Vegas, you and three other people have to meet with the intent to perform an unlawful act. The crime of unlawful assembly is a misdemeanor in Las Vegas. Pedestrian or vehicular interference is committed if you block people or vehicle traffic from accessing roadways, driveways, exits, and entrances.

  1. Disorderly Conduct Ordinances in Clark County’s Code

The city of Las Vegas lies within the boundary of Clark County, Nevada. Persons in Las Vegas are subject to the laws spelled out in the Clark County Code of Ordinances, which often overlap city and state laws. For example, Clark County 12.29.020 prohibits the same unlawful conduct at athletic events as the Las Vegas ordinances prohibiting disorderly conduct at sporting events.

Clark County 12.33.010 covers breaches of peace via disorderly conduct. The code is short and not well defined.

The prohibited offenses listed in Clark County 12.33.010 include:

  • Participating in a fight
  • Challenging a person to a fight
  • Committing a breach of the peace
  • Inciting a disturbance
  • Interfering with, annoying, accosting, or harassing another person

Law enforcement from Clark County or from the City of Las Vegas can arrest you and charge you with violation of breach-of-peace laws in Las Vegas. Since the laws in Clark County are vaguer than the laws in Las Vegas proper, infractions of the county ordinances may be easier for a county law enforcement officer to prove in court.

Always hire expert legal council whether you’re charged with a breach-of-peace offense by city police or by county officers. Your attorney may be able to help you beat vague or undefined charges against county and city ordinances when the law enforcement officers try to stretch the meaning of breach-of-peace rules.

  1. State Laws Covering Breach-Of-Peace Offenses in Nevada

Crimes against the public peace are covered by Chapter 203 of the State of Nevada Legal Code. The state laws governing crimes against the public peace include 14 numbered laws from Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 203.010 to NRS 203.119.

The Nevada state laws are more inclusive and well-defined than county and city laws spelled out in the Clark County or Las Vegas ordinances. State of Nevada Highway Patrol troopers, law enforcement officers, and district attorneys can use state laws to charge you with state breach-of-peace offenses.

Nevada considers the following to be state crimes against the public peace:

  • Committing breach of peace
  • Assembling to disturb peace or commit crime
  • Provoking actions that breach the peace
  • Publishing breach-of-peace incitement material
  • Affray (when two or more persons fight in public)
  • Rout and riot
  • Armed association (when non-approved, armed persons form military companies)
  • Disturbing an assembly or meeting
  • Fighting, harassing others, or using profane language on public conveyances
  • Refusing to pay fare on public conveyances
  • Forcible entry
  • Criminal anarchy and syndicalism
  • Committing public acts that interfere with peaceful

Most of the above state crimes are misdemeanors. However, criminal anarchy and criminal syndicalism (plotting or encouraging others to use terrorism, force, or violence to overthrow organized government) are considered Category B felonies in Nevada. A guilty felony verdict of either state criminal anarchy or state criminal syndicalism is punishable by at least one year in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.

If you or a loved one have been arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada on breach-of-peace charges, contact All Star Bail Bonds immediately to arrange for release from jail. We also provide bail bond services to people who’ve been arrested in North Las Vegas, Laughlin, and Henderson for your convenience

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