Nevada case may affect death penalties for teens

Susan Snyder and Bill Gang

Tuesday, June 8, 1999 | 11:28 a.m.

On the same day that teenager Sean Dixon avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to his crimes, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Nevada's pursuit of the penalty against criminals younger than 18 may be in violation of an international treaty.

In its one-sentence ruling issued Monday, the nation's highest court asked the U.S. solicitor general's office for an opinion on the U.S. Senate's 1992 decision to sign a treaty that called for a worldwide ban on imposing death penalties on people who commit the crimes when they are younger than 18.

In signing the agreement the Senate reserved the right to continue such executions in this country, said JoNell Thomas, a private defense attorney who represents Sean Dixon, a 19-year-old who pleaded guilty Monday for his part in the 1996 murder of his father and the 1997 attempted murder of a fellow jail inmate.

U.S. Supreme Court members questioned whether the Senate could sign an International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1992, yet reserve the right to allow states to continue using the death penalty on 16- and 17-year-old criminals.

Dixon was to go to trial next month, and prosecutors have said they intended to pursue the death penalty if he was convicted of attempted murder in the attack on a fellow inmate 16 months ago after being jailed in connection with his father's slaying.

Members of Amnesty International from Ireland, Belgium, England, France, Germany and the United States sent more than three dozen letters to attorneys involved in the case asking them to reconsider pursuing the death penalty under the international treaty signed in 1992.

"The letters were 50 percent responsible for the state coming to the conclusion that the plea bargain should be made in the case," said Robert Langford, another of Dixon's defense attorneys.

U.S. Supreme Court members issued their ruling after examining the case of Michael Dominguez, a Nevada death row inmate who was 16 in 1993 when he burglarized a home and killed a woman and her son, Thomas said. He raised the treaty issue in his appeal lodged with the Nevada Supreme Court.

The state court ruled that the penalty did not violate what the U.S. Senate intended, and the case was turned over to the U.S. Supreme Court, Thomas said.

The U.S. Attorney's Office likely will take 30 to 60 days to determine whether the Senate was allowed to sign the treaty and include an exception. Typically, such agreements are an all-or-nothing proposition, she said.

And fighting this one aligns the United States with some strange bedfellows, Thomas said.

"We've joined with Iran, Iraq and Nigeria in that," she said. "It's amazing. It makes us look horrible in the international community. I can't imagine what our interests are in keeping it." Dixon is one of three young men charged in the June 2, 1996, murder of his father Terry Dixon.

Dixon was 16 and brought with him a violent past when he moved into his father's eastern Las Vegas apartment. In court Monday, Dixon told District Judge John McGroarty that the single, fatal shot was fired "by another person," although he admitted to being involved.

"We went to take my father's truck, and he was killed," Dixon said in court.

Langford said Dixon intended to steal the truck but never intended to kill his father. It is questionable, the defense attorney said, as to whether Dixon pushed his father toward the gunman.

In pleading guilty to attempted murder in connection with that case, Dixon also admitted to attempting to kill a fellow inmate with a sharpened toothbrush on Oct. 13, 1997.

In exchange for his plea, the now-19-year-old Dixon received a life prison term without the possibility of parole for 40 years.

Thomas said for a man of 19, that pretty much accomplishes the same thing as a lethal injection.

"The kid's life is gone," she said.

The other two men charged in connection with Terry Dixon's murder are Jeremy B. Kelly and Alexander Lamar. Their trial is scheduled Sept. 7. they were 15 at the time of the crime and will not face the death penalty because Nevada law prohibits it for anyone younger than 16.

Dixon will be officially sentenced Aug. 18.

"The letters were 50 percent responsible for the state coming to the conclusion that the plea bargain should be made in the case."Attorney Robert Langford,ON SEAN DIXON'S PLEA BARGAIN