Former death-row inmate awaits new shot at a jury

Birusk Tugan

Monday, June 26, 2000 | 9:29 a.m.

For more than two decades John Mazzan has proclaimed his innocence in the stabbing death of his friend.

All during his 20 years on Nevada's death row, the Vietnam veteran insisted he didn't kill Richard Minor Jr., the son of a prominent Reno judge.

On Jan. 8, 2001, Mazzan will get a second chance to persuade a jury he is innocent in the 1978 slaying.

That will be one year after the state Supreme Court reversed his conviction. A Reno judge released him from prison on $100,000 bail in May, and the former hairdresser is now living in a Reno apartment.

"Mr. Mazzan is very happy. He has gotten his driver's license, and is looking for a job," said JoNell Thomas, a Las Vegas lawyer representing Mazzan.

Mazzan was freed after the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors failed to disclose information to his attorney that could have established reasonable doubt about his involvement in the killing.

That key information, the court said, would have provided a basis to challenge the thoroughness of the police investigation, and provided a lead which the defense could have pursued to find "further favorable evidence."

The unrevealed evidence was a police report on two drug dealers who, according to Thomas, "had a much stronger motive to kill Richard Minor Jr."

"Mr. Mazzan had no motive to kill his friend," Thomas said.

Mazzan testified in 1979 that he saw Minor scuffling with someone he could not identify. Minor collapsed on the apartment floor and Mazzan heard two people running away.

He fled to Las Vegas because he feared he might be in danger and could be arrested for drug use. The two friends had smoked marijuana and snorted cocaine a few hours before Minor, 26, was stabbed 15 times.

Mazzan later voluntarily returned to Reno, only to find himself standing trial for first-degree murder.

But the current and former Washoe County prosecutors stand by their conduct in the case. They still believe Mazzan is guilty.

Calvin Dunlap, who prosecuted Mazzan in 1979, cited a decision by District Judge Peter Breen that "they (Dunlap and Mills Lane, who handled the case first) are fearless prosecutors of the highest ability. They have also acted most honorably in this court."

Dunlap and Lane have since left the district attorney's office. Dunlap now practices law in Reno, and Lane, a prominent boxing referee, stars in his own syndicated TV court show.

"Anybody who is familiar with the Mazzan case can tell that the evidence was overwhelming against him," Dunlap said.

Washoe County Assistant District Attorney John Helzer supports his former colleagues. He said that the state Supreme Court, in spite of the reversal, wrote that there is sufficient evidence to support a conviction.

"It would be unethical to prosecute the man if I did not have faith in the case," Helzer said.

Helzer said the first step toward a new trial is a DNA test. The bloodstains on clothes and the carpet in Minor's apartment will be analyzed and compared to Mazzan's blood. The test will be concluded by the end of this week, Helzer said.

The lack of closure in the convoluted case has been agonizing for the victim's family.

Retired Judge Richard C. Minor, who found his 26-year-old son's body 22 years ago, said the length of such cases is fair to neither the victim nor the defendant.

"I want this to be done as quickly as possible. I want him to have a fair trial, and I will live with whatever the jury comes up with," the former Washoe County District Court judge said.

The death penalty is causing all of this, according to Minor.

"If it had been life in prison, it would have been different," he said.

"I don't have any strong feelings on the death penalty," he said. "But I am not anxious to see anybody die. It is against my religion anyway."

Minor said that he has faith in the judicial system, but he doesn't think Mazzan is telling the truth.

"I wish this thing would go away. I don't like it. But it's not going to happen until the entire truth comes out, until John Mazzan tells the whole truth," said Minor, who now practices law in Reno.

"I agree entirely," Thomas said, "that no jury has heard all of the true facts about this case, and it will all come out in January."