Jail-house tour

Kim Smith

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2000 | 11:30 a.m.

A public defender's fight to get her young client out of jail while he waits to be tried for murder led to a tour Tuesday of the Clark County Detention Center by the judge presiding over the case.

Deputy Special Public Defender Kristina Wildeveld wants Conan Pope, 15, placed on house arrest until a Clark County jury decides if he is guilty of killing his father, Frank Pope, on Jan. 6.

Nevada law allows juveniles who have been charged with attempted murder or murder to be tried as adults, but unlike many other jurisdictions, Clark County does not make any attempt to keep its juvenile murder suspects out of the "sight or sound" of adult inmates.

The county's policy became an issue a few days after Pope was booked into the jail when he allegedly had a sexual encounter with another inmate. Wildeveld maintains Pope was victimized by the inmate, and prosecutors contend he solicited the act.

Clark County District Judge Mark Gibbons agreed to tour the jail before issuing a final decision on Pope's placement.

Gibbons toured the facility with jail Capt. Henry Hooglund and attorneys for both sides, and the media followed in a separate tour.

Although the jail has the capacity to hold 1,488 inmates, an additional 246 are being forced to sleep on cots throughout the facility because of overcrowding, Hooglund said.

Another 700 inmates are being held in other facilities in the Las Vegas Valley thanks to contracts with the city of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson.

A jail expansion now under way will give "some latitude" in housing decisions, but for now authorities are having to make do, Hooglund said.

Visitors were directed through a series of beige and blue hallways, each one with a set of electronically controlled sliding bar doors. At the end of each hallway were enclosed two-story rooms with one and two-person cells on each floor and a shared dayroom on the first floor.

As some inmates peered out from the tiny window in their cell doors, others lounged around or napped under thin beige blankets on their cots. Blank TVs perched on round support columns in the middle of the room and another column boasted a bank of payphones.

Round plastic tables with maroon plastic chairs competed for space with the cots on slate gray floors scuffed bare in spots. Shower stalls just wide enough to accommodate a grown man occupied some of the outer walls on each floor.

The only difference between the general population and the protective custody areas of the jail is the inmates who make them up, Hooglund said.

Those housed in the protective custody area, which is where Pope allegedly engaged in the sex act, are people who might get undue attention from the general population, Hooglund said. They could be child molestors, people with handicaps, the elderly, juveniles or those whose charges may make them stand out.

Wildeveld argues that Pope should never have been housed in such an area, particularly because he is reportedly the victim of past sexual and physical abuse.

"It's psychologically damaging for a child to be put into these types of conditions," Wildeveld said.

Pope is currently being housed in one of 12 isolation cells for 23 1/2 hours of every day and that isn't much better, she said.

A set of bars stand between the hallway door and the isolation cells themselves, and inside the cells is a wooden plank set one foot off the floor that serves as a bed.

A stainless steel sink and toilet take up one corner. Inmates are provided with a thin mattress, blankets and pillows.

While pleased her client can no longer be victimized, Wildeveld said the conditions her client is living in can cause him irreparable harm.

"I don't want him to go crazy," Wildeveld said. "I want him to be protected, but this protection is punishment."

Conan Pope is a 15-year-old high school freshman who is being "caged like an animal," Wildeveld said.

Everyone wants to ensure Pope isn't a danger to the community, but if he's released on bond, no one will be checking on his whereabouts or if he's using drugs, Wildeveld said. At least if he's released on house arrest, he will be monitored.

Prosecutors want Pope to be housed in protective custody with a hand-picked cellmate who isn't likely to victimize him.

Hooglund said there are 24 people under 18 being housed at the jail. Pope is the only one in isolation.

Gibbons is expected to schedule a hearing on the matter after attorneys for both sides present their cases in written motions.

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