DA’s office under fire from attorneys

Kim Smith

Friday, May 4, 2001 | 11:03 a.m.

A national organization of defense attorneys has joined arms with the ACLU and local defense attorneys over what they perceive to be a violation of the attorney-client privilege by the Clark County district attorney's office.

According to court documents, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union will be on hand during a hearing before District Judge Mark Gibbons Tuesday.

At the hearing, Gibbons is scheduled to decide if local attorney Gary Segal should be removed from a burglary and theft case involving Melodi Ann Leavitt.

What has happened so far on the case "is a violative of the most precious underpinnings of the criminal justice system," wrote federal public defender Franny Forsman on behalf of the Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice.

Leavitt is accused of stealing money and documents from the Bonanza Mini Storage office last year.

According to court records, prosecutors tracked down the documents to Gary Segal's office and Segal admitted that he, indeed, had them.

Segal agreed to give the documents to the district's attorneys office, but when he reneged, Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Bowman authored a search warrant and District Judge Valorie Vega signed it.

Vega also ordered a public defender to go with the police officers to ensure that no other legal documents were seized or looked at, but District Judge Lee Gates rescinded that order at the request of the public defender's office.

The documents were eventually seized, and now prosecutors want Segal to testify at Leavitt's trial about their chain of custody.

The defense attorneys argue that the attorney-client privilege was destroyed when prosecutors contacted Segal and when he admitted that he had the documents and when they seized the documents.

It would be destroyed even further if Segal was to be recused from the case and forced to testify about how the prosecutors got the documents, they argue. Moreover, Leavitt should have the right to select her own attorney.

The attorneys believe that the documents themselves should be thrown out as evidence and the case against Leavitt dismissed.