At a Family Court judges meeting in early December, Judge Cynthia "Dianne" Steel called the fairness section "way too subjective to be useful to anybody." One question in that section, which does not ask respondents to name the judge who presided over their case, asks court users to evaluate whether their case was handled fairly.

"If you lost, of course it wasn't," Steel said.

She later added, "This is Family Court. They're going to kill us in this section."

Some people, through no fault of their own, are born colorblind. For example, they may not be able to distinguish green from red. It is not a devastating disease. They can still see; they just can't see the world the same way other people can. In fact, many people with colorblindness go through life without ever recognizing their deficiency.

How would you explain "red" to someone who has never seen it? Language is of no use here. You could say, "The color of a cherry," but that wouldn't convey much to someone who thinks a cherry is the same color as an avocado. If you ask them, "Can you see red?" they would say, "Of course I can," because they have seen everything that has been labeled as red. It just happens that, to them, red and green are the same color, while to the rest of us they are different.

You face the same challenge when trying to discuss certain emotional concepts with people who have never experienced them. How do you describe a loving mother or father to someone who never had one? It may seem simple to us, but the basic skills of parenting are almost impossible to explain in words and very difficult to train in others.

Henderson police are handing out free home drug test kits for parents concerned that their children are dope fiends.

The ruling by a three-justice panel of the court reversed a decision by Judge N. Anthony Del Vecchio, who at the May 2004 trial denied a postponement though two of the three parties in the dispute had no attorney present and spoke either limited or no English.

Last week, Chief Justice Bob Rose announced a few modest changes.

First, senior judges -- those who haven't been elected, but have been appointed to hear occasional cases for sitting judges who are unavailable -- may be removed via peremptory challenges in some instances.

The agency's goal was to have Clark County Family Services expedite placement of abused and neglected children into familylike settings, which is required by state and federal law....

That wasn't always the case. Once, Eric chafed under his parents' care. He considered them extremely strict. They wouldn't let him hang out with friends, he recalls, and grounded him for long periods for minor offenses, such as not cleaning the crumbs from the dinner table.

By age 15, he frequently slept on couches at his friends' homes. His parents, he says, "had a problem with it, but I would do it anyway."...

One day just before school dismissal, Eric's counselor called him into his office. He had heard from Eric's father and told the teen that he didn't think he should go home. Eric's parents had found some contraband in his room and had emptied it of everything but his bed and a few items of clothing.

He went home anyway. Seeing his stripped-down room, he punched a hole in a wall. When his father saw that, Eric says, he beat him. The police were called. Because Eric was cooperative, they left without taking him into custody.

After the police left, his father hit him again, Eric says. He hit back. His mother called the police, who took him to juvenile detention. And he promptly was sent back to his parents.

About a week later, Eric recalls, the scenes were re-enacted. This time he was sent from juvenile detention to a mental health facility.

"As soon as I got home, he started beating me again," Eric says of his father.

Wagner estimates that 80 percent of the police department's missing children cases are runaways, or fit into the category of "unknown." Precise numbers are impossible to pin down. Runaways don't exactly show up to be counted, and only a proportion of them come under the purview of social service agencies. Kathleen Boutin, director and founder of the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth, estimates that only half of them are reported missing by their parents. It's also possible, Wagner says, that "maybe the families haven't contacted us and told us their child has come back. ... I think the stats are a little deceiving."

Since then, his contract with Cram Middle School was terminated and Gourley, despite proclaiming his innocence, has been ostracized by neighbors, according to his attorney, Robert Draskovich. As far as the community was concerned, he was a child molester.

Martinez yawned when asked about Iny's death and asked detectives why it took them so long to talk to him about the shooting, according to his arrest report.

In short, child abuse or neglect allegations reported to authorities here do not receive a "real investigation," consultant Ed Cotton wrote in a scathing review of the county's troubled child welfare system.

"The fact that over 60 (percent) of the alleged child victims were never seen privately at any point must set off a major alarm that results in clear-cut policy and intense supervisory oversight," wrote Cotton, the former director of New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services.

The county released the review Thursday.

Cotton's team of reviewers examined 148 open abuse cases in October.

Their separate review of 1,352 randomly selected foster care and other out-of-home placement cases found:

• Documentation of cases is inconsistent.

• Almost all county child welfare workers viewed safety assessment worksheets as forms that must be completed rather than a tool to make a decision about a child's safety.

• Fewer than half of the children under county supervision were visited by caseworkers in the prior 30 days and half the parents caring for them hadn't been seen in more than 60 days.

Also, county child welfare workers told parents that it's OK for them to strike their children as long as they don't leave marks. "A CPS agency should not encourage parents to hit kids, nor should its agents imply to children that they are somehow able to stop it," Cotton wrote.

Steve Hiltz, a lawyer with the Children's Attorney Project appointed to represent the battered girl, said the child is best served by remaining in the care of her foster parents. The child requires ongoing and extensive medical care for the near-fatal head trauma she sustained in August, Hiltz said, and she is getting counseling on a weekly basis.

Hiltz said the girl is learning English and has bonded with her caregivers. He also told Kurtz the girl becomes fearful when asked about her mother.

District Judge Nancy Saitta said Ochs will be able to see her 2-year-old and 3-year-old from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. A court order had prohibited her from seeing her children after she was arrested more than two months ago on a charge of murder.

On Monday, they were told it is not likely they will ever get to see Nathaly again.

Citing an adversarial relationship between the Rodriguezes and the girl's grandmother, Maria Lopez, Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle denied the Rodriguezes' request for monthly visits with Nathaly, who was returned to her biological family in April.

"There has not been acceptance by the foster parents of the grandmother's role," Hardcastle said before making his ruling.

But doctors who examined Brandon Tomoria-Lamug's lifeless body said his internal organs were exploded, cuts and bruises covered his head, and the lobes of his brain were covered with blood clots.

The clerk, Sharon Phelps, began sending e-mails from the courtroom to her supervisor, Assistant Court Clerk Diana Alba, seeking guidance. The e-mails set in motion a series of events that eventually led to the involvement of Acting Chief District Judge Valerie Adair.

Two days later, on June 28, Adair sent the following e-mail to Alba's boss, Clark County Clerk Shirley Parraguirre:

"If Judge Moss issues an order directing the clerk to destroy any part of the file or record, please notify me immediately. We are going to take the steps necessary to protect the file until we are able to receive direction from the Supreme Court. Please do not act to implement the order until you have received direction from me."...

Pidwell was killed Wednesday afternoon when the driver of a white Ford F-150 ran a stop sign at Oakey Boulevard and Cimarron Road and slammed into the flatbed company truck that the victim was driving. Police said the pickup was driven by one of the two 17-year-olds. The other 17-year-old was driving a Toyota Tundra, which avoided the collision and fled the scene. That teen was taken into custody later.

The two students have been charged with felony reckless driving involving a death and have been booked into the Juvenile Detention Center. Their names have not been made public because they are juveniles.

"I could see it building up," he said.

Family Court Judge Cheryl Moss had a feeling, too, and called in extra bailiffs "just in case."

But her broken arm, her near fatal head injuries and her battered body showed police and physicians how much she has suffered since her mother took her to Las Vegas to live with Arash Hashemi, a man Rezaei had met on the Internet and visited twice this year.

Rezaei was deported before she could answer to criminal abuse and neglect charges. Hashemi faces the prospect of a grand jury indictment for the abuse allegations police have leveled against him. Prosecutors plan to proceed with abuse and neglect charges against Rezaei in absentia next week....

"This is a German child subject to German custody," said Attorney Joseph Sciscento, who represents Rezaei in the abuse and neglect case.

Sciscento said the mother wants the child returned to Germany.

Dumped by his girlfriend and approaching his 56th birthday, Merrill was aching for companionship. A "Latin singles" website led him to his new passion: Regina Filomena Crasovich Rachid, a 40ish divorcee with a seductive smile and some rough friends.

Merrill, a musician and carpenter with some money in the bank, jumped on a plane and was soon bestowing lavish gifts on Rachid, including $10,000 for the Botox clinic she ran out of her home here. He was besotted, even as her financial demands intensified and fraudulent charges mounted on his credit cards. Merrill made plans to sell his house, move to Brazil and marry Rachid.

On Monday, prosecutors at a hearing on the eighth-floor of the Regional Justice Center voluntarily withdrew child abuse charges against Hashemi, 35, saying they weren't prepared to proceed immediately.

Melanie Ochs, who is on house arrest, appeared Thursday in Family Court with her husband, Laurence Tokarski, who has custody of the couple's two young children.

Ochs' attorney, Robert Langford, said a psychologist recently evaluated the children. Langford said the psychologist determined the children have a strong bond with their mother "and that them being away from mom was having a detrimental impact on them psychologically and developmentally."

In 2001, Metro Police handled 17,886 domestic violence cases. By 2005, that number had risen to 22,394, according to Lt. Brad Simpson, head of Metro's family crimes section. This year, he said he expects to see 24,000 cases.

Officials say the rising numbers are partly a reflection of the region's fast-rising population, but the figures nonetheless show the depth of the problem today.

Last year, more than 9,000 people filed for temporary protective orders from Clark County's Family Violence Intervention Program....

Under changes to Nevada's domestic violence laws that took effect in 1998, police are required to make an arrest if they show up to a scene and see evidence of domestic violence on either person. Moreover, a third conviction for domestic battery brings a felony conviction and a minimum of one year in jail.

The county hired a consultant paid for with tax dollars to conduct three reviews. One review looks at all open Child Protective Services cases involving children five years of age and younger.

On Thursday, the legislative committee studying the health and welfare of minors in government care finalized a broad agenda of proposed bill drafts and policy recommendations that tackle the investigations of deaths of children, the placement of young children in foster care and the supervision of juveniles who've been sent to out-of-state care facilities because Nevada can't meet their needs....

Leslie pushed for acceptance of a bill draft that would make it illegal to place children under the age of 6 in group shelters, such as Clark County's Child Haven. Leslie acknowledged that some child welfare agencies prefer not to see the requirement in statute, but said it's important to place the very young where they will receive individual attention....

The move to transfer control of the court to the court administrator was supported by 27 of the 33 district judges.

The court heard the matter early in the day and by the afternoon issued a two-page order declining to make the changes recommended in July by Washoe District Judge Brent Adams.

The court unanimously found that the proposed limitation was unconstitutional....

The court took under advisement changes proposed by Chief Justice Robert Rose, including the following:

• Allowing the pre-emption of senior judges in civil cases, provided that two-weeks notice is possible.

I know because of the signs.

Michael Miletti's face, name and address appear on posters lining Wapello Street in Altadena, with the admonishment: "Leave Our Neighborhood Now Child Molester." Up since May, the signs are staked into lawns, taped to trash cans and nailed to tree trunks....

According to the reports, police decided the best way to maintain contact between the two men was to have a detective pose as an investigator with the public defender's office.

Juvenile Court Judge William Voy said that before he makes a decision, Marcus Shaw, 17, will have to undergo the same evaluations and background checks that probation officials performed on the five other suspects who were arrested on Nov. 23....

Shaw, who was a varsity football player this year, was taken into custody by arson investigators Friday and spent the weekend in lockup.

It is not a substance, an action or an outcome, but a frame of mind.

Premeditated murder is not evil. It is a result of evil. The Holocaust was not evil, at least by our definition, but evil was present in many of the minds that planned and committed it. Events and inanimate objects cannot be evil; only people can, and they don’t have to do anything heinous for the evil to exist.

Ruthless. Cunning. Tough. Brilliant. These are some of the words political players from both sides of the aisle commonly use to describe the Las Vegas Democrat who is set to become the first female speaker of the Nevada Assembly.

Genuine respect, tinged with genuine fear, is what most political players -- other politicians, lobbyists, and those who've observed her ascent -- express when asked about Buckley.

The Prime Directive is a pretty good starting position in any moral argument. Should you be interfering in other people's lives? In general, no, people are best equipped to deal with their own problems. This is a guiding principle of American government—that it should not intervene in the lives of its citizen's without specific authority and solid grounds. It should also be a starting principle for you and I.

Often we see people in obvious distress or conducting their lives in ways that we know are self-destructive. That doesn't mean it is our place to intervene. We may choose not to intrude even when we see a crime being committed or one person hurting another, or when we know that we are perfectly capable of helping. The fact is, intervention can be both costly and risky. Your actions may be well-intentioned, but that doesn't guaranteed they'll be effective, and if there are any unexpected side effects, you will be responsible.

As a child welfare activist, my main concern is that the location might be inappropriate for the purpose, being too far from DFS headquarters and the majority of its potential clients. To follow up on my concerns, I visited the property on Nov. 30 and conducted a simple internet search regarding it.

Prosecutor Michael O'Callaghan revealed that evidence against the youths during a hearing Thursday in Clark County Juvenile Court.

The 2006 Consensus Population Estimates state that the county's five cities and the unincorporated areas surrounding them added 96,954 people in the 12-month period that ended in July, raising Clark County's estimated population to 1.91 million people.