Guinn mulls delay of April 21 execution

Erin Neff

Friday, April 13, 2001 | 11 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- With a proposed moratorium on the death penalty moving through the Senate, Gov. Kenny Guinn is seeking legal options to delay a scheduled April 21 execution.

Guinn is out of town until Monday, when he plans to make a decision about whether he can delay the scheduled death date for Sebastian Stephanus Bridges, 37, who was sentenced to death for killing his estranged wife's lover.

"His legal staff is proceeding with our options to delay the execution," Guinn's press secretary Jack Finn said this morning.

Guinn's chief legal counsel, Keith Munro, is researching the governor's options.

After Wednesday's Pardons Board hearing on condemned inmate Thomas Nevius, Guinn expressed personal turmoil at having to weigh the heavy decision of authorizing an execution.

"I haven't slept in days," Guinn said Wednesday in his office. "This is very difficult to decide whether a man should be executed one day when the Legislature may come back the next day with a moratorium.

"Then what do you do?"

The Senate was scheduled today to amend Senate Bill 254 -- Sen. Joe Neal's bill that would repeal the death penalty outright.

Sen. Mark James, R-Las Vegas, proposed an amendment to institute a 2-year moratorium on the death penalty until a study can be conducted into alleged racial and socioeconomic biases and a legal system stacked against defendants.

Bridges is the only inmate on Nevada's death row with a scheduled execution date.

A South African national, Bridges has refused to seek appeals and says he wants to die for the 1997 killing of Hunter Blatchford in the desert near Las Vegas. Blatchford, who was shot in the stomach, was the lover of Bridges' estranged wife.

Guinn said he has wrestled personally with the death penalty issue, especially in light of Wednesday's Pardons Board hearing in the Nevius case.

Nevius has scored below the state-recognized benchmark IQ of 70 for mental retardation three times in recent years.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday passed a bill sponsored by Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, that would prohibit the death penalty from being imposed on a mentally retarded person.

The U.S. Supreme Court is also considering the constitutionality of executing a mentally retarded North Carolina inmate.

Guinn, as chairman of the Pardons Board, has the ability to call a meeting of that board, which he did in the Nevius case. The Pardons Board has the ability to delay an execution.

The proposed death penalty moratorium is picking up support on both sides of the aisle, with Guinn stating he will likely sign such a measure.

In Illinois, a temporary moratorium led to the repeal of the death penalty after studies found racial and socioeconomic biases with the sentence and discovered innocent people on death row.