Berry v. State, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 96 (Dec. 24, 2015)

The issue before the Court was an appeal from a district court order dismissing a post-conviction petition for writ of habeas corpus. The Court reversed and remanded holding that the district court improperly discounted the declarations in support of the appellant’s petition, which included a confession of another suspect, whom the petitioner implicated as the real perpetrator at trial. The Court held that these declarations were sufficient to merit discovery, and an evidentiary hearing on Petitioner Berry’s gateway actual innocence claim

State v. Merlino, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 65 (Sept. 10, 2015)

The issue before the Court was whether selling stolen property through a retractable sliding tray on a pawn shop’s drive-through window satisfied the element of unlawful entry of a building as defined in the burglary statute. The Court held that when the outer boundary of a building is not self-evident from the shape and contours of the structure itself, courts must apply California’s “reasonable belief” test which legally defines the outer boundary to include, “any element that encloses an area into which a reasonable person would believe that a member of the general public could not pass without authorization.

Photopolymerized Cross-Linked Thiol–Ene Polyanhydrides: Erosion, Release, and Toxicity Studies

Several critical aspects of cross-linked polyanhydrides made using thiol–ene polymerization are reported, in particular the erosion, release, and solution properties, along with their cytotoxicity toward fibroblast cells. The monomers used to synthesize these polyanhydrides were 4-pentenoic anhydride and pentaerythritol tetrakis­(3-mercaptopropionate). Techniques used to evaluate the erosion mechanism indicate a complex situation in which several phenomena, such as hydrolysis rates, local pH, water diffusion, and solubility, may be influencing the erosion process. The mass loss profile, the release rate of a hydrophilic dye, the rate of hydrolysis of the polyanhydride, the hydrolysis product solubility as a function of pH, average p<i>K</i>_a and its cytotoxicity toward fibroblast cells were all determined. The solubility of the degradation product is low at pH values less than 6–7, and the average p<i>K</i>_a was determined to be ∼5.3. The cytotoxicity of the polymer and the degradation product was found to be low, with cell viabilities of >97% for the various samples studied at concentrations of ∼1000–1500 ppm. These important parameters help determine the potential of the thiol–ene polyanhydrides in various biomedical applications. These polyanhydrides can be used as a delivery vehicle, and although the release profile qualitatively followed the mass loss profile for a hydrophilic dye, the release rate appears to be by both diffusion and mass loss mechanisms