Attorney named special prosecutor for retrial

Bill Gang

Thursday, June 10, 1999 | 11:51 a.m.

Attorney Robert Langford has been appointed special prosecutor in the retrial of a man charged with murdering a basketball teammate after an argument over a bad pass.

In accepting the appointment Wednesday to prosecute 26-year-old William Chris Shoels, Langford returns at least temporarily to the type of job he held for seven years as a Clark County deputy district attorney.

The district attorney's office was disqualified early this week by District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski from again prosecuting Shoels, whose 1995 murder conviction was tossed out by the Nevada Supreme Court earlier this year.

Although the DA's office prosecuted the first trial, one of Shoels' lawyers, then-Deputy Public Defender David Wall, is now a deputy district attorney on the major violators unit that was to again pursue the case.

A new trial is set for Oct. 25.

Shoels, 26, had a history of juvenile and adult robberies including the use of a .25 caliber pistol and was on probation and house arrest at the time of the fatal basketball game on Aug. 25, 1993.

Shoels was convicted of murdering 31-year-old Gregory Hayes with a shot from a .25 caliber pistol he had smuggled into the Chuck Minker Sports Complex, 275 N. Mojave Road.

The two had been teammates before the argument over the bad pass resulted in Shoels quitting the game. 00000