DA weighing options in death penalty reversal in Reno case

Brendan Riley

Saturday, Jan. 29, 2000 | 9:39 a.m.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - Jack Mazzan, off death row for the first time in 20 years as a result of a successful appeal, could be a free man in a month unless prosecutors decide to retry him for the 1978 murder of a Reno judge's son.

Gary Hatlestad, chief appellate deputy for the Washoe County district attorney's office, said Friday a decision will be made "as quickly as possible" once a final document from the Nevada Supreme Court is filed. That document is due in 2 1/2 weeks.

"We are weighing our options, including a retrial," Hatlestad said when asked to comment on the high court's decision to erase Mazzan's conviction for the murder of Richard Minor Jr. because prosecutors withheld crucial evidence.

Mazzan lawyer JoNell Thomas said she hopes Mazzan will be free by the end of February. He'll be transferred from state prison to the Washoe County jail pending a decision on a retrial, and she plans to seek his release on bail and demand a speedy trial if prosecutors try to revive the case.

"It would be interesting to go to trial and seek an acquittal," Thomas added. "But it might be in the best interests of everyone to release him and let him move on with the rest of his life."

Thomas also said she didn't know whether any civil lawsuit for damages would be filed on Mazzan's behalf. "I would hope there would be some kind of compensation," she added.

The Supreme Court didn't prohibit a retrial, but stated that defense lawyers could try to stop one by arguing Mazzan's conviction was unfair in the first place and evidence he'd need now for an adequate defense is "stale."

In oral arguments last fall, the district attorney's office insisted that Mazzan's trial lawyer got information on the questioning of other suspects in the stabbing death of Richard Minor Jr.

But defense lawyers said they didn't get a full police report two decades ago from then-District Attorney Cal Dunlap or his chief deputy at the time, Mills Lane, on two out-of-state drug dealers with an apparent motive to kill Minor.

The files with the damning disclosures of evidence withheld by the prosecutors surfaced only a few years ago in response to a subpoena from the state public defender's office.

"The evidence in the police reports provided support for Mazzan's defense that someone else murdered Minor because of his drug dealing," the Supreme Court said. "It also provided a basis to impeach the thoroughness of the state's investigation of the crime."

Minor's body was found in his apartment by his father, Richard C. Minor, a justice of the peace at the time and later a district court judge.

Mazzan insisted he had stayed at Minor's apartment the night of the murder because his car wouldn't start, and awoke to see two men who he couldn't identify leave the apartment following the killing.

Defense witnesses at Mazzan's trial testified Minor had been involved in marijuana trafficking and feared for his safety because of a drug deal gone bad.