Opinion
2:22-cr-00008-JCM-EJY-1
04-24-2023
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. GJERGI LUKE JUNCAJ Defendant.
ORDER REGARDING TRIAL
JAMES C. MAHAN UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
1. Attached hereto is a list of cases that are presently scheduled for trial before the Honorable James C. Mahan, United States District Judge, at Las Vegas, Nevada, commencing on MONDAY, the 8th day of May 2023, at 9:00 a.m. in Courtroom 6A. This is a two-week trial stack.
2. Counsel for all parties in the civil and criminal cases shall appear in Courtroom 6A on WEDNESDAY, the 3rd day of May 2023, at 1:30 p.m. for calendar call. Unless a party in a civil case or a defendant in a criminal case is appearing pro se, the individual parties in civil cases and the defendants in criminal cases will not be required to appear for calendar call unless the court directs otherwise.
3. Counsel or their clients will be excused from calendar call if prior to the scheduled calendar call settlement papers have been filed in a civil case or a defendant's plea of guilty or nolo contendere has been accepted in a criminal case.
4. At calendar call, all cases that remain to be tried will be ranked in order of trial. Thereafter, the court will not grant a continuance to any party absent a showing of good cause. Unless the court otherwise directs, the cases will be tried one after the other on TWENTY-FOUR (24) HOURS' notice from the clerk.
5. CHANGE OF PLEA HEARINGS. Change of plea hearings will be set on the first available date on the court's calendar. It shall be the joint responsibility of counsel for the United States and for defendant(s) to ensure that the original and two copies of the plea agreement (or a plea memorandum in cases of no plea agreement), together with a copy of the indictment, are delivered to Judge Mahan's courtroom deputy clerk. Change of plea hearings will not be heard at calendar call, and will not be set until a signed courtesy copy of the plea agreement (or a plea memorandum) is either delivered directly to Judge Mahan's courtroom deputy clerk and/or faxed to chambers. It shall further be the responsibility of counsel for the United States to ensure that any necessary produce orders, or writs of habeas corpus ad prosequendum are timely delivered to the United States marshal to ensure the presence of all in-custody defendants for a change of plea, and to ensure proper notification for the attendance of any court interpreter which may be required for the particular case.
6. STATUS HEARING. The court may conduct a status conference prior to the scheduled calendar call. If the court is satisfied during the status conference that the case is ready for trial, the court may vacate the calendar call.
7. WITNESSES. Counsel shall immediately subpoena all witnesses for the time and trial date as listed above. Inasmuch as the cases will be tried in a trailing fashion, the subpoenas should contain a special instruction from counsel directing witnesses to contact the office of counsel for further instructions prior to appearing for trial. Witnesses are not required to be present at the calendar call but must appear as subpoenaed.
8. EXHIBITS. At calendar call counsel shall submit all proposed exhibits on a DVDR, CD, or USB Flash Drive (storage device) to Judge Mahan's courtroom deputy clerk. The disc or drive shall be labeled with the title of the case and the name of the party for whom the exhibits are submitted. A hard copy of the party's exhibits list that includes the electronic file name for each exhibit shall be submitted with the storage device. Unless otherwise directed by the court, the storage device will not be returned to counsel. Parties shall be prepared to submit hard copies of any exhibits admitted during trial. At the same time, counsel shall serve upon opposing counsel a copy of the same. Numerals shall be used to identify all exhibits. Plaintiff's exhibits shall be marked 1 through 500. Defendant's exhibits shall be marked 501 through 1000. Exhibits that are on the same subject matter may be marked as a series: that is, Plaintiff's 1-A, 1-B, etc., and Defendant's 501-A, 501-B, etc. The exhibits shall be listed on the form to be provided by the clerk and pursuant to the instructions as shall be supplied by the clerk.
Submitting Exhibits
There are two ways for attorneys to submit exhibits:
Method one: each exhibit file should be clearly named as in the examples below, using this format: exhibit numberexhibit description.file extension, or, if an exhibit has sub-parts, exhibit number-exhibit subpartexhibit description.file extension. All exhibits must be in the same folder or directory.
For example: 1-a_photo of store from east view.jpg
1-b_photo of store from west view.jpg
2_camera footage.wmv
3_contract.pdf
Method two: law firms using exhibit management software may submit (on a storage device) exhibits exported using an indexed filename method with a text delimited file naming the exhibits. The text file must be named “Exhibits.txt” and each line must contain information using this format: exhibit number-optional subpart|exhibit description|exhibit file name. The “exhibits.txt” file must be in the same folder or directory as all the exhibits.
For example: 001-001|Photo of bank|GX001.pdf
002-001|Camera footage|GX002.wmv
Exhibit File Types
The court's evidence system will accept electronic evidence only in the following formats as other types cannot be uploaded:
• Documents and Photographs: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .pdf, .tif
• Video and Audio Recordings: .avi, .mpg, mp3, .wav, .wma, .wmv**Each PDF file may not be larger than 12MB. Hyphens and underscore characters must be used as shown in the examples above.
Counsel may use computer-generated exhibit lists so long as they conform to the requirements of the form that is provided by the clerk. Counsel shall retain possession of their exhibits until such time as they are identified in open court; afterward, the exhibits shall remain in the custody of the clerk, unless otherwise ordered.
9. MARKING EXHIBITS. During preparations for trial, counsel for all parties shall meet, confer, and exchange all trial exhibits at calendar call.
10. WITNESS LISTS: At calendar call, counsel and any party appearing pro se, shall file with the courtroom deputy clerk a list of witnesses expected to be called on behalf of each party for use by the court during jury selection.
11. STATEMENT OF THE CASE: At calendar call, counsel and any party appearing pro se shall file with the courtroom deputy clerk a brief statement of the case, no longer than one-half page, stating the nature of the claims and offenses, to be read to prospective jurors at the time of jury selection. In a criminal case, a copy of the Indictment, indicating which portions should be read to the jury, will satisfy this requirement.
12. JURY INSTRUCTIONS IN CRIMINAL CASES. Counsel are to comply with the “Order Regarding Pretrial Procedure.” At calendar call, counsel is required to jointly file one set of agreed-upon proposed jury instructions and form of a verdict at calendar call to the Court both in document form and on computer disk in Word format. The parties are further advised that the undersigned district judge has developed his own “stock” or “general” jury instructions drawn principally from the Manual of Model Criminal Jury Instructions for the Ninth Circuit.
13. GOVERNMENT'S TRIAL MEMORANDUM. In all criminal cases, Plaintiff United States shall file its original government's trial memorandum under seal at calendar call and shall also provide a reading copy for the court. The government's trial memorandum shall be served on counsel for defendant on the date trial commences.
14. JURY INSTRUCTIONS IN CIVIL CASES. In all civil cases to be tried before a jury, counsel and any parties appearing pro se are required to jointly file one set of agreed-upon jury instructions and form of a verdict at calendar call both in document form and on computer disk in Word format. To meet this requirement, the parties are required to serve their proposed jury instructions upon each other at least two weeks prior to trial and file those with the court on the date indicated in the pretrial order, and to thereafter confer to arrive at a single set of jointly agreed upon jury instructions. To the extent the parties are unable to agree as to the form of any particular instruction(s), each party shall also file at calendar call the jury instruction(s) which are not agreed upon together with the respective arguments and authorities of the parties in support thereof.
The parties are further advised that the undersigned district judge has developed his own “stock” or “general” jury instructions drawn principally from the Manual of Model Civil Jury Instructions for the Ninth Circuit. Therefore, the efforts of the parties in preparing the jury instructions in compliance with this order should be focused on developing special jury instructions which relate to the particular claims and defenses at issue as well as those relating to the damages and any special evidentiary matters pertinent to the case.
All proposed jury instructions submitted by the parties should be concise, understandable, and neutral statements of law. Argumentative jury instructions are improper, will not be given, and should not be submitted.
15. TRIAL BRIEFS, PROPOSED FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW. To the extent they have not already done so in accordance with the court's joint pretrial order, counsel for all parties, and any party appearing pro se, shall file an original and two copies of a trial brief in all civil cases at calendar call. Additionally, in all civil cases to be tried before the court sitting without a jury, the parties shall file proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law at calendar call. Counsel wishing to utilize the court's evidence display equipment must contact the courtroom deputy to determine its availability and to arrange for training.
16. EXPEDITED OR DAILY TRANSCRIPTS. Any party that will require expedited or daily transcripts shall notify the Judy Moore via email judy.moore@nvd.uscourts.gov immediately upon receipt of this order. Failure to timely notify the Reporter may result in the refusal to provide expedited or daily transcripts. A Transcript Order form must be submitted to transcript orders@nvd.uscourts.gov .
17. TRIAL JUDGE. Although the cases that are listed on the attached trial calendar are assigned to Judge Mahan, the cases may proceed to trial before another Nevada district judge or a visiting district judge.
18. CONSENT TO TRIAL BEFORE A MAGISTRATE JUDGE. Counsel and parties in civil actions are reminded of their right to consent to disposition before a United States magistrate judge pursuant to Title 28, Section 636(c)(2) of the United States Code. The right to proceed before a magistrate judge in a civil case includes those cases that will be tried before a jury as well as those cases to be tried before the court sitting without a jury. Any appeal from a judgment in a proceeding before a magistrate judge shall be taken directly to the United States court of appeals. The option to proceed before a magistrate judge is available to the parties at the time an action is commenced. The court may refuse to approve consent if it appears to be motivated by an effort to delay the proceeding.
19. SANCTIONS. As provided for under the local rules of practices of this court, the court will consider the imposition of sanctions against any attorney who: (1) fails to timely file trial briefs, suggested voir dire questions and proposed jury instructions or proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, whichever is applicable, as prescribed by the pretrial order, order regarding pretrial procedure, scheduling order or any order extending the time for such filings; (2) fails to comply with the provision of this order including, but not limited to, the failure to appear for calendar call without first having been excused by the court or the clerk with the permission of the court; or (3) fails to timely comply with any other order that schedule deadlines for trial preparation.
20. CONTACT PERSON. All questions and information regarding the trial calendar are to be directed to ANGELA REYES, courtroom deputy clerk, at 702-464-5437.
21. The date of the clerk's file mark shall constitute the date of this order.
IT IS SO ORDERED.