Editorial: A hollow appeal by a murderer

Thursday, Nov. 18, 1999 | 9:47 a.m.

Two years ago Sherrice Iverson, just 7 years old, was brutally murdered in a Primm hotel-casino outside of Las Vegas. Casino security videotapes captured Jeremy Strohmeyer playing hide and seek with Iverson in an arcade before he took her into the women's restroom, where he raped the child in a bathroom stall and strangled her to death. There didn't seem to be much question about Strohmeyer's guilt: Not only did the 18-year-old from Long Beach, Calif., tell friends that he had killed Iverson, he also confessed to Las Vegas Metro Police.

So many legal observers believed Strohmeyer was fortunate when, on the eve of his trial, District Attorney Stewart Bell agreed to a plea bargain from his defense attorneys in which Strohmeyer pleaded guilty in return for a life sentence. If the case had gone to trial, it seemed inevitable that Strohmeyer would be convicted and receive the death penalty. But as the Sun's Bill Gang reported Tuesday, Strohmeyer is now seeking a new trial, claiming that he was "bullied" into pleading guilty by one of his attorneys, Leslie Abramson. Ultimately a judge will have to decide the merits of the appeal, in which Strohmeyer also contends that Abramson didn't possess enough knowledge of Nevada law to adequately represent him, but some of the reasons Strohmeyer gives for granting a new trial are ridiculous.

Take for instance Strohmeyer's contention in his petition that Abramson had unfairly cajoled him and his parents into accepting life in prison instead of taking his chances with a jury trial. Abramson, according to them, was able to get their consent for the deal after she described how a death sentence would be carried out. Abramson said their son would be "strapped to a gurney and dying like an animal when they injected him with poison," according to the petition for a new trial. But isn't that why someone hires a defense attorney, to give them unvarnished advice that ensures they take the best option -- even if it's not what they want to hear? Suppose instead that Abramson had presented a rosy scenario, telling her client that he would not be convicted and all would be fine. If Abramson had done that, and allowed the trial to proceed with the end result a death sentence for Strohmeyer, you can be guaranteed that he would have filed a petition saying he didn't receive adequate counsel forewarning him of th at prospect.

Strohmeyer's suggestion that he received inadequate counsel is interesting, especially considering that his family could afford the $250,000-plus fee to hire such a prominent and noted defense attorney as Abramson. Petitions citing an inadequate defense typically are made by penniless defendants who received court-appointed attorneys. What is happening here is that Strohmeyer obviously is finding out that life in a remote state prison in Nevada is a long way from the comfortable suburban life he once lived. But for Strohmeyer to now complain that his defense attorney bullied him -- after he sexually assaulted and killed a child -- is outrageous. All Strohmeyer is doing with this appeal is heaping even more pain on the family of Sherrice Iverson.