Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,
Las Vegas Metro police are refusing to release a violent repeat offender, in defiance of a local judge’s order.
The career criminal, 36-year-old Joshua Sanchez-Lopez, has been arrested 35 times, with a rap sheet that includes involuntary manslaughter, drugs and car theft, according to the New York Post.
The legal standoff began in January, when police arrested Sanchez-Lopez on a warrant for grand larceny of a motor vehicle.
Justice Eric Goodman set Sanchez-Lopez’s bail at $25,000 and ordered his release with an ankle monitor once he posted bond.
The program allows defendants to leave jail and wear an ankle bracelet. Various levels of the program require different levels of confinement. Goodman ordered Sanchez-Lopez to high-level electronic monitoring, which Dickerson described as house arrest. About 450 defendants are in the program at a time.
Sanchez-Lopez reportedly posted bail on January 24, but the Las Vegas police refused to place him in the program, given his history of failing to comply with the rules. Attorneys for Metro filed a petition last week challenging the judge’s authority to release him, arguing that the Department has the authority to declare a defendant too dangerous to release.
In a letter to the court, the department gave three reasons for refusing the judge’s order.
Sanchez-Lopez’s history of failing to appear in court
His previous bench warrants
His past violations of electronic monitoring rules
Police cited a case in 2020, where Sanchez-Lopez, armed with a gun, ran from the cops and later joked about his ankle monitor on Snapchat and gloated about being “chased again.”
“We have to take a look at that and say, ‘Is this somebody who our electronic supervision program can monitor safely in the community?” Mike Dickerson, assistant general counsel for Metro police, told KLAS. “This is an issue of public safety.”
Goodman last month threatened to hold the police department and Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill, who heads Metro police, in contempt of court for defying his order.
In its petition, filed on March 9, the department asked “for the justice court to stop trying to force Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill to violate his statutory duty.”
Sanchez-Lopez’s public defender told KLAS the cops are out of line.
“Metro’s argument is flat wrong,” attorney P. David Westbrook told the outlet. “It is the job of the elected judge to decide whether someone charged with a crime should be released and under what conditions.
“The idea that a Metro employee can overrule a judge’s release order and keep someone locked up should worry anyone who believes in the Constitution and the rule of law,” Westbrook said.
Metro’s Office of Public Information also provided the following statement to KLAS:
On Monday, March 9, 2026, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department filed a petition with the Nevada Supreme Court asking for a writ of prohibition against the Justice Court of the Las Vegas Township.
LVMPD is asking for the justice court to stop trying to force Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill to violate his statutory duty. The justice court is threatening contempt proceedings against Sheriff McMahill for not releasing a pretrial detainee to LVMPD’s electronic supervision program even though the sheriff determined that electronic supervision of that individual would pose an unreasonable risk to public safety and communicated his determination to the justice court.
Sheriff McMahill’s authority to evaluate whether electronic supervision of a defendant poses an unreasonable risk to public safety is clearly defined in NRS 211.250(2) and NRS 211.300.
The Justice Court of the Las Vegas Township has the authority to release dangerous people into our community. However, the sheriff will not violate the law to assist those few judges who seek to use LVMPD’s electronic monitoring program in disregard of public safety and the safety of the dedicated LVMPD corrections officers who administer the electronic monitoring program.
Sanchez-Lopez’s case is scheduled to return to Goodman’s courtroom on Thursday, March 19, KLAS reported.
The case comes as the public becomes increasingly concerned about the dire consequences of liberal, soft-on crime policies amid a slew of appalling stories in the news featuring homicidal maniacs, illegal alien gangbangers, and career criminals being released back onto the streets again and again to victimize innocent Americans thanks to lenient judges like Goodman, Soros district attorneys and Blue State sanctuary politicians.