Opinion ID: 2570062
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Retroactive application of procedural statutes

Text: Relying on People v. Miller, [34] a Michigan Court of Appeals case, Pullin further argues that this court should decline to apply the general rule because statutes that are remedial or procedural in nature may be applied retroactively. We disagree. In Castillo, this court addressed whether it would apply procedural or remedial statutes retroactively and rejected the argument that such statutes should apply retroactively despite the lack of legislative intent to apply the statute in that manner. [35] Preliminarily, this court observed that the majority of state courts do not mandate that such statutes be applied retroactively, but instead leave the determination to the court's discretion. [36] This court went on to reject Castillo's contention, observing that it had previously refused to apply procedural rules retrospectively unless such rules were of constitutional dimension. [37] Here, the amendments made to NRS 193.165 were not of constitutional dimension. The amendments did not alter any of the constitutional aspects of NRS 193.165, such as the requirement that a jury must find or a defendant must admit to the fact that a deadly weapon was used in the commission of a crime. [38] Instead, the amendments merely give the district court more discretion in determining the sentence. Thus, we decline to apply these amendments retroactively.