To make an arrest, a private person, if the offense is a felony, and in all cases a peace officer, may break open a door or window of the house, structure or other place of concealment in which the person to be arrested is, or in which there is reasonable grounds for believing the person to be, after having demanded admittance and explained the purpose for which admittance is desired.
NRS 171.138
Breaking open door or window: Making arrest
Known as the Uniform Act
The act spans §§ 171–171 (111 sections).
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case Payton v. New York (1980)
Most recently applied in SER (GEORGIO) v. STATE (November 2025)
(Added to NRS by 1967, 1402; A 1983, 244)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Nevada Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Nevada statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.