Trial on hold after defender resigns

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 1999 | 11:38 a.m.

The trial of a teenager facing the death penalty in the slaying of two people during a bar robbery has been pushed back four months after his lawyer resigned from the public defender's office.

An international letter-writing campaign protesting a possible death sentence for Kenshawn Maxey had heated up as his Sept. 7 trial date neared.

However, the trial on Tuesday was postponed until Jan. 11 to give the Clark County Public Defender's office time to put a new deputy on the case.

Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz has said there are no plans to abandon the death penalty as a possible punishment should Maxey be convicted of first-degree murder in the May 1998 shooting deaths, despite the letters.

The contention of the letter writers is that Maxey was 17 at the time of the incident and to sentence him to death would violate an international treaty that prohibits capital punishment for persons who committed crimes while under the age of 18.

Schwartz said he has received about 50 letters this week alone.

Maxey is charged in the May 1998 holdup at O'Aces Bar & Grill on Rainbow Boulevard that ended with the bartender and one of the bandits being killed.

Artis Moore, 20, already has been convicted of murder for his role as the getaway driver and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Salvatore Zendano, the 25-year-old bartender at the tavern, was killed as he struggled with one of the bandits, 18-year-old Lashawn Levi.

While Levi shouted "shoot him, shoot him," Maxey is alleged to have opened fire on the pair with a 9 mm pistol, according to court records. Both men died from their wounds.

In the letters -- from such countries as England, Holland and Germany in addition to the United States -- prosecutors were politely chastised for their death penalty stance and prodded to be lenient in Maxey's case.

A German man stated that the ban on death penalties for juvenile offenders "is so widely recognized and adhered to worldwide that it has become a principle of customary international law binding on all countries regardless of which (treaties) that have or have not ratified."

A Massachusetts man added, "As soon as we start using the death penalty on children, then we as a country lose the high ground in dealing with international problems. All of a sudden we get lumped in with some awful governments."

A British writer stated, "It is disturbing that since 1990, out of 19 people worldwide known to be executed for crimes committed when they were under 18, 10 were executed in the USA."

He noted that the others were executed in Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The letters made it clear they were not addressing the issue of guilt or innocence.

Maxey's case is the second that has drawn such opposition.

The first involved Sean Dixon, who was 16 when he played a role in the 1996 killing of his father. Dixon, now 19, escaped the death penalty when he plea bargained his case and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years.

His attorney, Robert Langford, said that a letter writing campaign in opposition to the death penalty from members of Amnesty International was instrumental in Dixon obtaining the plea bargain.

In June the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on an appeal over a 1993 double murder 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, 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.

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.