Las Vegas harassment charges are frequently brought against perfectly innocent people. Perhaps their normal behavior was misinterpreted as threatening, or perhaps they were falsely accused.
In Nevada, harassment is any type of threatening words or conduct. Harassment also includes threatening a person to harm someone else, like their family or pet.
Plus, the threats do not have to be immediate to qualify as harassment: What is important is the threat itself, not when it may be carried out.
Keep reading to learn about Nevada harassment law and how our Las Vegas criminal defense lawyers may be able to help get your charges dismissed or reduced so your record stays clean.
- 1. When is harassment a criminal offense in Nevada?
- 2. How do I fight the charges?
- 3. What are the penalties?
- 4. Additional resources
1. When is harassment a criminal offense in Nevada?
Harassment is an extremely general crime that comprises many possible actions. Broadly speaking, to harass in Nevada means knowingly to threaten someone else with harm so that person reasonably fears that the threat will be carried out. Such harm may include:
- Bodily injury,
- Physical damage to property,
- Being restrained or physically confined, or
- Anything else intended to substantially harm another person’s physical or mental safety.
In order to be considered harassment in Clark County, the threats can be made by
- words or
- conduct.
It is also considered harassment to threaten one person to harm another person, such as threatening a mother to hurt her baby.
The injury being threatened does not have to be immediate—threatening to do harm in the future may still be harassment.1
Relation to stalking
Although harassment is a separate offense from stalking, they are closely related because they both comprise behavior that causes another person to reasonably fear being harmed. The main difference is that:
- harassment is the direct threatening of harm through words or actions, whereas
- stalking usually involves trying to force contact with the victim.
Also see our article on hazing (NRS 200.605).
2. How do I fight the charges?
If you have been charged with harassment in Nevada, remember that you cannot be convicted unless the prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you’re guilty. Since many of these cases have no hard evidence other than the accusations of the supposed victim, it’s not uncommon for the D.A.s to ultimately dismiss the case or reduce it to a more minor charge.
Some defenses your lawyer can explore using are the following:
- Your actions were in self-defense.
- The “victim” is lying about what you said or did.
- Your behavior did not rise to the level of harassment.
- You were acting under “lawful authority” (such as a security guard or cop), or your actions fell under the constitutional protection of freedom of speech and assembly.
3. What are the penalties?
The penalties a Clark County judge will impose for a harassment conviction depend upon whether you:
- committed harassment before,
- threatened substantial bodily harm, or
- used the internet to carry out the harassment:
Standard penalties
A first offense of committing harassment is just a misdemeanor in Nevada, carrying the following sentence:
- up to 6 months in jail, and/or
- up to a $1,000 fine
Any subsequent harassment offenses are charged as gross misdemeanors, which have double the maximum penalties:
- up to 364 days in jail, and/or
- up to a $2,000 fine
Fear of death or substantial bodily harm
If the alleged harassment caused the “victim” to fear substantial bodily harm, then the D.A. may instead bring category B felony charges carrying a sentence of:
- 2 to 15 years imprisonment, and
- maybe a $5,000 fine
Online harassment
If the threatening behavior transpired over the web, text messaging or a similar service, the harassment may be charged as a category C felony, which mandates:
- 1 to 5 years imprisonment, and
- maybe a $10,000 fine2
Learn about Nevada’s cyber-stalking laws.
Protective Orders; (NRS 200.591)
In many Nevada harassment cases, a judge will also impose either a temporary protective order (TPO) or an extended protective order requiring the suspect to keep away from the “victim” for a predetermined period of time. Deliberately violating one of these orders can carry harsher penalties than the harassment itself:
It’s a gross misdemeanor to intentionally defy a temporary order in Nevada. The punishment includes:
- up to 364 days in jail, and/or
- up to a $2,000 fine
And it’s a category C felony to intentionally break an extended order. The punishment includes:
- 1 to 5 years imprisonment, and
- maybe a $10,000 fine3
4. Additional resources
For more in-depth information, refer to these scholarly articles:
- Where Do We Draw the Line between Harassment and Free Speech: An Analysis of Hunter Harassment Law – Animal Law.
- Identifying Stalking: The Relevance of Intent in Commonsense Reasoning – Law and Human Behavior.
- Unregulating Online Harassment – Denver University Law Review.
- Cyber Harassment: Its Forms and Perpetrators – Law Enforcement Technology.
- Hacking and Harassment—Do They Have Something in Common? Comparing Risk Factors for Online Victimization – Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice.