Del Papa accused of stalling death case

Friday, July 19, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa has pushed for laws to speed up appeals in capital punishment cases, but for the second time this year her office is being blamed for long delays in a death-penalty case.

For six years, the attorney general's office never filed a response to a petition by Thomas Nevi us, sentenced to death in Las Vegas for the 1980 murder of David Kinnamon. The case sat dormant in District Court in Carson City.

District Judge Mike Griffin said Thursday, "From 1989 until April 1994, the attorney general's office did nothing in this case. No explanation has been given to this court for the long delay."

Nevius, who has gone through the various courts trying to avoid the death penalty, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in June 1989. It sat there without being answered by Del Papa's office.

Griffin said Nevius was "essentially in a legal limbo" trying to prevent the state from carrying out its execution but at the same time not wanting to alert the court the attorney general's office was dragging its feet.

Although Griffin denied the petition for freedom by Nevius, he said, "In this case, the effects of the delays caused by the failure of the attorney general to proceed were very significant."

The judge said John Graves Jr., an attorney who had represented Nevius, was called to testify but was "unable to recall details with precision because of the passage of time."

Nevius claimed he did not get competent representation from Graves. Graves said he would have been able to give a "clearer picture of details" on his representation if he had been called earlier.

Despite the long delays, Griffin said he denied Nevius' petition because the killer had raised the same issues in previous appeals.

Del Papa said she was pleased that Nevius will face a new death warrant in the near future.

"Admittedly, delays, which could and should have been prevented, have occurred in this and a couple of other cases," Del Papa said. "No one is more upset about that fact than I am."

She said her office, before these decisions, started a "concerted effort" to reduce and eliminate delays in death-penalty cases.

Her office, she said, has been in the forefront of pushing for reforms at state and federal levels to speed up the death penalty.

The Nevius case, she said, points out the need for reform of the "paper overload" in death-penalty cases. Nevius has been to several district courts with appeals, the Nevada Supreme Court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Del Papa also said the court system should have a way of flagging these cases to make sure these types of delays do not happen. A case can be filed and it can sit for years, she said, without the court system in Carson City following up to make sure it's progressing.

Her office handles 5,000 cases a year, she said, and occasionally one slips through cracks.

In April, Griffin also criticized Del Papa for not filing an opposition motion for more than four years to a petition sought by death row inmate Jimmy Neuschafer, convicted of the 1981 strangulation of a fellow inmate at the state prison in Carson City.

At that time, Del Papa agreed her office contributed to the delay but said the Neuschafer case had required a huge amount of resources because of the many appeals. She said this was a "perfect example of the type of abuses" that need to be curbed in the court.

In the Nevius case, he and three companions entered a home in Las Vegas in July 1980 to commit a burglary. Rochelle Kinnamon was home alone at the time. Nevius and another man dragged her into the bedroom. Nevius threw her on the bed, held a gun to her face and attempted to sexually assault her.

Rochelle's husband, David, then came home from work. The four men started to leave and Nevius was at the window when the husband asked what was happening. Nevius fired four shots, killing the husband.