Court OKs use of Strohmeyer’s computer

Bill Gang

Monday, Aug. 10, 1998 | 2:04 a.m.

When the jury is selected for the murder trial of Jeremy Strohmeyer, it will be permitted to see the contents of the Long Beach, Calif., teenager's personal computer.

Strohmeyer is scheduled to stand trial Aug. 17 on charges he raped and murdered 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a Primm casino women's restroom during the early morning hours of May 25, 1997, while her father gambled.

In a 3-2 decision released today, the Nevada Supreme Court has reversed a decision by the original trial judge in the case that the computer's contents were legally inadmissible.

Then-District Judge Don Chairez's ruling concluded that Long Beach police didn't justify a May 29, 1997, search of Strohmeyer's home during which the computer was seized as evidence. Chairez ruled March 4, 1998, that the Long Beach police had not justified the seizure of the computer. Whereas other items seized from Strohmeyer's home were justified on the search warrant, the computer and its contents merely were listed.

The Clark County district attorney's office appealed Chairez's ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court.

The majority -- Justices Bill Maupin, Miriam Shearing and Cliff Young -- concluded that the experience of the California homicide detective who drafted the search warrant should have carried sufficient weight to make the search warrant legal.

"We conclude the magistrate properly relied on the conclusions of an experienced law enforcement officer and reasonably inferred that evidence was likely to be found on the computer," the majority opinion stated.

The trio also stated that despite no mention in the affidavit supporting the search warrant of the computer, the listing of the computer in the search warrant itself was sufficiently specific and "the District Court erred in suppressing the evidence."

But Chief Justice Charles Springer and Justice Robert Rose, in separate dissents, noted that the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrants that allow lawmen to rummage through a person's possessions looking for evidence.

They pointed out that U.S. Supreme Court decisions have dictated that nothing should be left to the discretion of the officers executing the search warrant.

Rose stated that it took two months of searching the files in Strohmeyer's computer before police found the evidence prosecutors want to use in the trial.

Rose warned that using the questionable computer evidence "puts any eventual conviction at risk because admitting it may well be deemed an error in federal proceedings" and a new trial could be ordered.

"Consuming more judicial resources and provoking public disrespect for the judicial system ... is more risk than I think the state should undertake," he said.

Springer added: "It is quite understandable that the court would be hesitant to give its approval to any relief to the accused in this horrible murder case, but the facts should not be allowed to sway jurists, one way or the other, from the rule of law."