Former death-row inmate sees freedom at the end of the tunnel

Bill Gang

Wednesday, June 10, 1998 | 11:18 a.m.

A man who has spent most of the last decade on Nevada's death row will get his freedom back before the turn of the century, but to do so he had to give up his opportunity to sue the police department that put him there in the first place.

Despite the giant step toward the light at the end of the tunnel, Victor Maximilian Jimenez displayed no sense of relief in court Tuesday to consummate the deal. He was led solemnly from the courtroom in chains to await his sentencing next month.

Jiminez pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in District Judge John McGroarty's courtroom with the understanding that his ultimate sentence will expire no later than Dec. 1, 1999.

His guilty plea, however, was under a legal provision that does not require him to admit actual responsibility, but only to avoid the harsher penalties possible if he again stood trial on first-degree murder charges and was convicted.

Jimenez's original conviction was overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court, which ruled that evidence favorable to the defendant was improperly withheld at his 1988 trial in the fatal stabbing of two men in a North Las Vegas bar.

John Mynheir and Antonio Velasquez were killed during the $330 robbery at Gabe's Bar.

Attorney Robert Langford, appointed as a special prosecutor in the case because of the alleged misconduct by the Clark County district attorney's office, said in court that evidence presented at a new trial would have linked Jimenez to the slayings.

But defense attorney JoNell Thomas said the case was complicated because police and prosecutors didn't reveal evidence favorable to the defense about two alternate suspects who had been arrested for an unrelated robbery.

A witness had told a police officer he overheard the two men talking about a barroom killing and one of the men displayed a knife. The information had been passed along to the detectives in the Gabe's Bar case, but it was not disclosed to defense lawyers as is required by law.

Thomas added that deals made by prosecutors to drop drug charges for a witness was never revealed to the defense.

In the unanimous Supreme Court decision, the justices noted that the police informant, Billy Thomas, had been given leniency in exchange for his testimony that he overheard Jimenez on the telephone admitting he killed the two victims.

The court also said that testimony given by North Las Vegas Detective Bruce Scoggin "was at best inaccurate and at worst perjury." Scoggin testified he hardly knew Thomas and knew of no other cases where Thomas had provided police with information.

But just nine months before his trial testimony, Scoggin dropped a charge against Thomas for help Thomas gave in cases other than the Jimenez case. Thomas' testimony that he had never received favored treatment before the Jimenez case also were false, the high court decision concluded.

Other than Thomas' story about the incriminating telephone call, the case against Jimenez was based on circumstantial evidence, making the credibility of the witness vital.

In Tuesday's plea bargain, Jimenez agreed not to file civil lawsuits against the North Las Vegas Police or its officers, the Clark County district attorney's office or the Nevada Department of Prisons.