Another delay sought in Strohmeyer trial

Bill Gang

Friday, Aug. 21, 1998 | 10:44 a.m.

Attorneys representing Jeremy Strohmeyer are going to the U.S. Supreme Court in their effort to prevent prosecutors from using child pornography found on the teenager's personal computer in his impending murder trial.

The result could be another delay -- perhaps for months -- of the murder trial over the rape and strangulation slaying of 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a Primm casino restroom on May 25, 1997.

Las Vegas attorney Richard Wright and Los Angeles lawyer Leslie Abramson took the first step in that direction Thursday by asking the Nevada Supreme Court for a postponement of the trial while the appeals are being processed in the nation's high court.

The Nevada Supreme Court, however, hasn't been sympathetic to the defense position on the legality of the computer evidence that was seized from Strohmeyer's room in his parent's Long Beach, Calif., home.

The computer was confiscated and probed via a search warrant issued by a California judge shortly after Strohmeyer's arrest on May 28, 1997, as he was fleeing his home.

The legal problem arose when it was learned that the police affidavit -- required by law to specifically set out information that would justify the search warrant -- failed to mention the computer.

The original trial judge, District Judge Don Chairez, had ruled months ago that the computer was illegally seized and couldn't be used as evidence. But earlier this month, and just 10 days before trial, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned Chairez's decision by a slim 3-2 margin.

That opened the door to the use of the child pornography and Internet chat room conversations that prosecutors have said will prove Strohmeyer premeditated the murder of the Los Angeles second grader.

An emergency motion by the defense to reconsider the admissibility of the computer was rejected, although the justices ordered a two-week "fairness" delay in the trial to give the defense a chance to conduct its own investigation of the computer's contents.

The trial is set to begin Aug. 31 unless another delay is ordered.

In Thursday's motion, the defense team stated the order permitting prosecutors to use the controversial computer was "plainly erroneous" and pushed through on a "fast track" that prevented a full hearing on the legal issues.

"This peculiar, if not unique, fast-track appeal procedure ... combined with the precipitous, 11th-hour (reversal of Chairez) ... has denied Strohmeyer the opportunity for a full and fair review," the motion stated.

If the Nevada justices decide not to go along, they simply could order that the trial proceed as scheduled and leave the legal issue for an appeal if Strohmeyer is convicted.

If the high court agrees to put off the trial, the defense team then must win permission from the U.S. Supreme Court before there can be a hearing on the Fourth Amendment search and seizure issue.

Wright stated that documents will be filed within a week with the federal court.

Because that court is in recess for the summer and won't begin new hearings until October, the defense motion argued that an extended delay in Strohmeyer's trial is necessary to let that process run its course.