Federal Crimes on Public Land in Nevada

More than half of Nevada is federal land

Most of the open country around Las Vegas is not state land. It is administered by the federal government, which means an offense committed there is a federal offense, handled in federal court, no matter how minor it looks on the ticket.

The places people are most often cited in southern Nevada are:

• Lake Mead National Recreation Area — National Park Service
• Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area — Bureau of Land Management
• Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, including Mount Charleston
• Hoover Dam and the land around it
• Great Basin National Park, a National Park Service unit in eastern Nevada

Common charges are ordinary ones: speeding and other traffic offenses, driving under the influence, boating under the influence, assault, disorderly conduct, and natural resource offenses. What makes them different is not the conduct. It is the forum and the rulebook.

How conduct ends up in federal court

There are two common routes. The first is location: the conduct happened on land administered by the federal government, so a federal agency’s regulations apply and a federal court hears the case. That is the route for nearly every citation written at a lake, a trailhead, or a scenic drive around Las Vegas. The second is subject matter — a federal statute reaches the conduct wherever it occurred, often through a connection to interstate commerce, which is why a great many offenses committed entirely within Nevada’s borders can still be charged federally.

This page is about the first route. If you were stopped by a park ranger, a Bureau of Land Management law enforcement officer, or another federal officer, and you were handed a violation notice rather than booked into a county jail, this is the track you are on.

The distinction almost nobody explains: which agency manages the land

Lake Mead and Red Rock Canyon are about twenty miles apart. They are governed by different regulations, and the maximum punishment is not the same.

Why that matters: 18 U.S.C. § 19 defines a petty offense as a Class B misdemeanor, a Class C misdemeanor, or an infraction, and 18 U.S.C. § 3559(a) defines a Class B misdemeanor as an offense carrying six months or less but more than thirty days. A National Park Service violation at Lake Mead fits inside that definition. A Bureau of Land Management violation at Red Rock, with a twelve-month ceiling, can fall outside it.

So the first question on a public land case is not “what did the officer write down.” It is: whose land was it, and what is the maximum penalty for the regulation cited. That answer determines the rest.

The Superintendent’s Compendium

On National Park Service land, 36 CFR is not the whole rulebook. Each unit’s superintendent issues a Compendium — the site-specific closures, restrictions, and designations for that park. Conduct that is unremarkable on one lake or one trail can be a violation on another because the Compendium says so. If you are cited under a Compendium provision, the specific text in force at that unit is part of the case, and it is worth obtaining rather than assuming.

The other sites around Clark County

Lake Mead and Red Rock are the two most heavily cited places in southern Nevada, but they are not the only ones. The Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, which takes in Mount Charleston, is federally administered, as is the land around the Hoover Dam. Great Basin National Park, in eastern Nevada, is a National Park Service unit. Each of these is managed by a federal agency, and the governing regulations and penalty ceiling follow from which agency that is.

The practical point is the same everywhere: do not assume that because two places look alike — two campgrounds, two trailheads, two stretches of desert road — the same rules and the same maximum penalty apply. Identify the agency named on the violation notice and the regulation cited on it. Everything else on this page depends on those two pieces of information.

What you keep, and what you do not

People expect federal court to look like the criminal trials they have seen. On the petty-offense track it does not.

Fed. R. Crim. P. 58(b)(2) provides that there is no right to a jury trial for a petty offense, and no right to appointed counsel for a petty offense for which counsel is not required. A magistrate judge decides the facts, and no public defender is necessarily appointed. That is the most consequential thing on this page, and it is exactly why the six-months-versus-twelve-months distinction above is not academic — the classification of your charge is what determines whether those rights attach.

Where the case is heard

Violation notices written on federal property are processed through the Central Violations Bureau, the national center that handles federal tickets. Many can be resolved without a court appearance — unless Box A on the face of the violation notice is checked, in which case appearance is mandatory. Look at your own copy before you assume anything about mailing it in.

Where appearance is not required, Fed. R. Crim. P. 58(d)(1) allows the court to accept a fixed-sum payment in lieu of the defendant’s appearance and end the case. That is called collateral forfeiture. It ends the matter, but it is a resolution rather than a dismissal, and it is worth understanding what it leaves behind before sending the payment.

Cases that do go to court are heard in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, before a magistrate judge. In Las Vegas that is the Lloyd D. George Courthouse, 333 Las Vegas Blvd. South. In the north it is the Bruce R. Thompson Courthouse in Reno.

Driving and boating under the influence on park land

36 CFR 4.23 governs operating under the influence on National Park Service land. It reaches a person who is under the influence to a degree that renders them incapable of safe operation, and it sets a threshold of 0.08 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, or 0.08 grams per 210 liters of breath. State law may impose stricter limits than the federal regulation. Nevada’s own threshold is 0.08 under NRS 484C.110(1)(b).

One provision surprises people: 36 CFR 4.23(b) reaches a person operating under the influence of a drug, including a lawfully prescribed medication. A valid prescription is not, by itself, an answer to the charge.

What a conviction leaves behind

A federal conviction is a federal conviction, including one that started as a ticket handed over on a boat ramp or at a trailhead. It appears on background checks. Depending on the offense, it can carry consequences beyond the fine printed on the notice — on driving privileges, on employment screening, and on access to the federal land where it happened. Those consequences vary by offense and by circumstance, and they are worth asking about specifically before a case is resolved, because they are much harder to address afterwards.

Before you pay a federal ticket

Three things are worth checking on any citation written on public land in Nevada:

1. Is Box A checked? If it is, appearance is mandatory and the ticket cannot simply be paid.
2. Whose land was it? National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management sites are governed by different regulations with different ceilings.
3. What is the maximum penalty for the cited regulation? That number decides whether the offense is petty, and therefore whether you have a jury and appointed counsel.

Andrew Wong practices primarily in federal criminal defense and handles public land cases in the District of Nevada. The ACLU of Southern Nevada invited him to speak on federal public land offenses. Consultations are free. Call Vegas Golden Law at 702-385-7170, seven days a week, 8:30 am to 5:30 pm.