When Nevada was admitted to the federal
Union in 1864, three justices were elected to the Supreme Court for a term of six years. This was increased to five justices in 1967, and to seven justices in 1997. which until the early 2000s was the actual situation in
New Hampshire and
West Virginia, as well as
Virginia until 2023. Nevada, however, has guaranteed its residents a right to appeal since statehood. From the 1980s to the present, Nevada state supreme court justices have been burdened with the highest per-justice caseloads of any state supreme court in the United States. In January 1999, to bring its soaring backlog under control, the Supreme Court of Nevada adopted for the first time a measure that was frequently used by the
Supreme Court of California prior to the creation of the
California Courts of Appeal in 1904 (and for a few years afterward). The Court divided itself into two three-justice panels which rotate membership every 12 months. The majority of cases are now heard and decided by the three-justice panels, with one panel in
Carson City and one panel in
Las Vegas. The Chief Justice is the administrative head of the court system, with authority to divide the work of the Supreme Court among the justices, assign district judges to assist in other judicial districts or to special functions, and assign retired judges or justices to appropriate temporary duty. The primary advantage of this system is that it is often easier and faster to negotiate a consensus on the key points of a
majority opinion among three instead of seven justices. The disadvantages are that the two panels might inadvertently issue conflicting majority opinions; and that an appellant might be ruled against by two justices on a panel of three, who might have been a minority if the case had been heard by a full court of seven justices. Meanwhile, the state supreme court continued to lobby the people and the legislature of the state of Nevada to create an intermediate appellate court. The Legislature eventually authorized the latest attempt to appear on the November 2, 2010 ballot. Question 2, however, was narrowly rejected by 53% of the 670,126 votes cast. The same issue appeared again as Question 1 on the November 4, 2014 ballot, which was narrowly approved by Nevada voters by a 54 percent to 46 percent margin. Nevada then immediately established a
Nevada Court of Appeals. ==Current justices==