On August 23, two Nye County detention deputies were arrested over the death of a woman held in the county jail. The sheriff's office said there would be no further release of information while the case was open. It would not give their names. We found them anyway.
A lot of readers asked the same thing afterward. Can the sheriff just do that?
Some of it is his call. Much of it is not. What happens to a Nye County officer after an arrest is mostly set by a contract the county signed with the officers' union. Those contracts are public. Here is what they say.
Who is in charge here
Pahrump is not a city. The town government runs fire, parks and code enforcement, not a police department. The Nye County Sheriff's Office is the only law enforcement in town, and it also runs the jail. Sheriff Joe McGill is elected countywide. No mayor or commission hired him, and none can fire him. Voters do that.
The district attorney, Brian Kunzi, is elected the same way. His office decides whether to charge anyone with a crime, a deputy included. The same office is also "the legal counsel for the County and its officers." Both jobs sit under one roof. The contract leans on that too. When a discipline case heads to mediation or arbitration, written notice goes to the district attorney, who acts for the county.
There are three contracts, not one
Nye County law enforcement is split into three groups. Each one has its own contract.
- Deputies, detention deputies, investigators and bailiffs: the Nye County Law Enforcement Association, NCLEA, 2024 to 2027
- Sergeants and detention sergeants: the Nye County Sergeants' Association, NCSA, 2025 to 2029
- Lieutenants: the Nye County Association of Sheriff's Supervisors, NCASS, 2024 to 2027. Captain and above are in no union at all.
The deputy and sergeant contracts carry the same discipline articles in almost the same words. The article numbers below are from the sergeants' contract, and each links to the page.
Two cases run at the same time
When an officer is arrested, two separate things start.
One is the criminal case. That belongs to the district attorney and the courts, same as it would for you.
The other is the job. Can the officer be fired, demoted, suspended, or put back on the street? That is the inside case, and the union contract runs it.
Neither one decides the other. An officer can beat the charge and still lose the job, or be convicted and still fight the firing.
What the sheriff CAN do
Fire an officer over a crime. The contract has a discipline chart, Addendum B. It puts "criminal conduct classified as a felony or a crime of violence or dishonesty" in Category E. That is the top level, and it allows firing. Lying on duty and filing false reports sit in the same top box.
Go easier than that. The chart sets the most he can do, not the least. A crime smaller than a felony is Category C, which stops at a 20 hour suspension. So is a DUI. The department head can always choose less, at his sole discretion.
Stay quiet at the start. The contract says an officer must be told a complaint exists "as expeditiously as practicable." But if the department needs to work in secret, it can give no notice at all until those steps are done (Article 13, section 6a).
Keep paying the officer. An officer facing a long suspension, a demotion, or a firing "may be suspended with pay" while the decision is pending. That is the paid leave you read about in the news, written into the contract.
Stop the pay during a criminal case. State law lets the county cut off pay while a criminal case is going. But if the charge is dropped, or the officer is found not guilty, or no discipline follows, the county has to pay that money back. NRS 289.092
Cut a new officer loose. For the first 365 days an officer is on probation. He can be let go "without notice, reason or right of appeal" (Article 12).
Question the officer without the usual warnings. Nevada gives officers extra rights in an inside investigation, like 48 hours written notice before questioning. Those rights do not apply when the investigation is criminal.
What the sheriff CANNOT do
He cannot fire by surprise. Discipline starts with a written notice. It has to list each rule the officer is accused of breaking, describe what he did, and say what punishment is being asked for. The officer then has five working days to ask for a hearing (Article 13, section 6a).
He cannot punish more than he proposed. The final discipline "may not exceed the proposed discipline and may not be based upon reasoning not contained in the proposed discipline."
He cannot take forever. The department head has six months from the complaint to make a final ruling. Miss it, and the contract says it "shall be presumed that the employee is exonerated and no additional discipline may result." The officer can ask for that in writing. There is an exception for delays he cannot control, and he must tell the officer and the union in writing when he uses it.
He cannot hold the hearing alone with the officer. The officer may bring up to two people of his choosing. That can be a lawyer, a union rep, or another officer. State law says the same. NRS 289.080
He cannot stack the penalties. One incident gets two disciplinary actions at most. They cannot come from the same section of the chart.
He cannot use old paper. Discipline comes out of the file after two years with no similar trouble. Once it is purged it "shall not be used by the Department for disciplinary purposes in the future" (Article 26). Discipline that was never handed to the officer, or never filed with Human Resources, cannot be used either.
He cannot show you the file. A personnel file goes to the officer, the department head, department staff, county lawyers, and county HR. Anyone else needs the officer's written permission, a court order, or a legal requirement (Article 26, section 3). This is the piece that matters most to the public, and why "no further release of information" is often not just a preference.
He cannot let it out through the hearing. Everyone in the room at a pre-discipline hearing signs a non-disclosure agreement.
The part people argue about
A death in custody or a shooting is a "critical incident" under the contract. Article 21 then kicks in.
The officer has to give a quick public safety statement right away. He can be made to take a blood or alcohol test within two hours. Weapons are taken as evidence.
Then this. If there is video or audio of what happened, the officer "shall be afforded the opportunity to review" it before he is interviewed or writes a report. The written report is due no sooner than 48 hours after the incident, and no later than 96.
Departments and unions say the delay makes the account more accurate, because memory settles. Critics say no regular person gets two days and a look at the video first. Both are true. It applies to every critical incident, not just the ones that make the news.
One more thing worth knowing
The contract has a deal built in (Article 13, section 7). If the department head and the union both agree, an officer can accept blame and skip the process. In trade, the discipline drops one category. If it was a Category E, firing comes off the table.
What you can actually get
You cannot get the personnel file. You can get these.
- The union contracts, linked above.
- The department's written steps for looking into complaints. Nevada law makes every agency post them publicly. NRS 289.055
- Arrest and booking records through the state's SAVE lookup. That is how the two deputies got named.
- County payroll on Transparent Nevada, which tells you whether someone is still getting paid.
That last one is the tell. When the sheriff will not say whether an officer still has the job, the payroll usually will.
Part of our Know Your Rights series. Corrections and documents: nyeslies.com
