Lyon County’s 2018 crime stats resembled those from past years.
County Attorney Marc Goodman says 575 criminal cases started court proceedings last year after 558 in 2017 and 571 in 2016. Goodman says the cases typically come in several categories, including drugs, finances and sexual activity. With drugs, methamphetamine-related cases continue at a high level.
Financial crimes are constant. So are sex crimes, although Goodman says there haven’t been any significant adult-child predatory cases recently and certain potential rape cases don’t get charged because prosecutors don’t have enough evidence to proceed. Child in need of care cases, a civil court category, were up 200 over 2017.
Many notable cases last year resulted in probation instead of jail or prison time. Whenever that happens, there has been a lot of social media chatter. However, Goodman says judges’ hands are often tied when it comes to the sentencings they can hand down because of different grids created by lawmakers for drug-related and non-drug-related cases.
Prosecutors can ask for durational departures from sentencing guidelines, or an increase in the length of a sentence, although they cannot ask for more than double the maximum sentence on the grid. They can also ask for a dispositional departure, which could turn a probation sentence into prison time if the judge approves.
In cases of multiple felonies attached to a given case, prosecutors can ask for consecutive sentences, or one after the other, instead of concurrent, where the defendant serves his sentences all at once. Goodman says judges need to see separate impacts of the different charges before they will use consecutive sentences.
Goodman anticipates a push in the Legislature legalize medical marijuana and, possibly, a separate push to legalize recreational marijuana. Goodman says he does not approve either, based on what he says is the addictive nature of the drug.
