Miller’s lawsuit against Jones goes to trial today

Monday, April 30, 2001 | 11:10 a.m.

The libel case of a former Las Vegas City Councilman and his former mayor and political rival goes to trial today, 10 years after the bitter campaign that prompted it.

That might be enough time for the names of Steve Miller and Jan Laverty Jones to be unfamiliar to many potential jurors, District Court Judge Michael Cherry said Friday during the case's final pretrial hearing.

Because of the area's rapid growth, "there are a lot of new people who may have never heard of Mr. Miller or Mrs. Jones," said Cherry, the ninth local District Court judge who has been assigned to the case. The other eight recused themselves for conflict-of-interest reasons.

Miller's libel suit against Jones stems from their 1991 campaign for Las Vegas mayor and centers on a controversial political flier the Jones campaign sent out just days before she won the election.

In May 1999 the Nevada Supreme Court refused to reconsider its prior decision ordering a trial. In the earlier decision, the high court ruled 3-2 that Miller should be able to present his claim to a jury.

That decision had overturned a District Court summary judgment in favor of the ex-mayor that included with an order for Miller to pay Jones $20,000 in legal costs.

Because Miller is a public figure, he must prove to an eight-person jury that Jones not only was inaccurate, but also showed "reckless disregard" for his reputation.

On Friday Cherry warned the attorneys, "Don't forget we are dealing with human beings." Neither Jones nor Miller should be unduly hurt during what is expected to be a two-week trial, he said.

Cherry will allow both sides to present a limited number of newspaper articles, television videos and radio tapes both positive and critical of Miller's years in office. But he said he will not allow a 4-inch thick notebook of critical newspaper stories and columns of Miller's public career offered by Jones' attorney, Bruce Laxalt.

Miller's attorney, Samuel Harding, said the trial should center only on whether Miller's reputation was harmed by the May 3, 1991, political flier that accused Miller of "giving false information in a report concerning cocaine found in a car Miller was driving."

"It was simply out-and-out false," Harding told Cherry. "He (Miller) suffered greatly then and he is still suffering. It was a negative, dirty trick in the late stage of the campaign when Mr. Miller could not respond."

Four days before the May 7, 1991, election, Jones' campaign staff distributed the flier that included a reproduction of a Sun story by Jeff German that said Miller had informed police a small amount of what appeared to be cocaine had been discovered in a Porsche he had bought for a family member.