Nevada’s ‘Sherrice Iverson’ bill OK’d by Assembly

Wednesday, April 14, 1999 | 9:28 a.m.

AB267 was inspired by the 7-year-old's rape and murder in a casino bathroom. The bill would impose six-month jail terms on anyone 16 or older who fails to tell police after learning of such abuse.

Witnesses who don't act as "Good Samaritans" and alert police as soon as possible about such crimes also could face civil lawsuits.

The original bill would have eliminated attorney-client, doctor-patient, reporter-source and husband-wife legal privileges in cases where people had a reasonable belief that someone younger than 18 was being abused.

But that wording was deleted because of constitutional concerns raised by public defenders and defense lawyers.

Left in the bill were exemptions for blood relatives and anyone related by marriage, despite concerns that such exemptions effectively gut the bill.

Assemblyman Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, a police officer, introduced the bill two years after Sherrice Iverson was raped and strangled in a Primm casino bathroom by Jeremy Strohmeyer, who ultimately was sentenced to life in prison.

Strohmeyer's friend, University of California, Berkeley, student David Cash, was criticized because he saw the start of the attack but didn't report it. He also wasn't prosecuted because Nevada does not have a law requiring him to do inform police.

"If David Cash had reported the vicious crime against Sherrice Iverson, a 7-year-old child would be alive today," Perkins said.