Lawmakers tackle tough issue of death penalty

Erin Neff

Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2001 | 9:15 a.m.

No issue dogged this year's Legislature the way Nevada's death penalty did.

Lawmakers grappled with bills that would have abolished the punishment or reformed the way it is applied, but in the end they only could agree to study the difficult issue.

On Monday an interim legislative committee began in the first of six meetings to tackle the task of recommending bills to the 2003 Legislature that will improve what many believe are inherent flaws in the way capital punishment is carried out in Nevada, which has the largest per capita death row population in the nation.

"This is an enormous subject, and the number of ways in which the system is broken are too vast to be addressed by the six meetings we have here," said Michael Pescetta, a federal public defender who works on behalf of some of Nevada's death row inmates.

Monday's session, held in Carson City and broadcast live via videoconference to the Sawyer State Office Building in Las Vegas, was to establish an overview of the issue and a time line for the next five meetings.

The study topics for the bipartisan group of four Assembly members and four senators already are broad. They will look at race, religion, national origin, gender, economic status and geographic location of defendants in capital cases, as well as standards for criminal charges, prosecution and sentencing.

Also to be examined are the competency of counsel, adequacy of resources, instructions to jurors, judicial expertise and trial rules. Those are the topics up for consideration at the committee's next meeting in January.

"I think it's one of the most important topics nationally, as well as in the state, of our day," said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, who chairs the interim study committee.

Leslie, herself an ardent death penalty opponent who proposed a measure this year to prohibit the death penalty from being imposed on mentally retarded people, cautioned committee members to have an open mind.

"Our task is not to pass judgment on whether the death penalty is morally right or wrong," Leslie said. "I think we all need to talk more and listen more."

The committee's third meeting, in February, will examine costs, deterrence and the appeals process. The fourth session, in March, will be a discussion of DNA evidence, while mental retardation will be the topic of the April meeting. In May the committee will hold its final meeting, a work session, to try to craft the five draft requests of bills to amend the system.

State Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, said he also wanted the committee to discuss the political ramifications of the death penalty in Nevada's statewide elections.

But Neal, who introduced legislation this year to institute a moratorium on the death penalty until the issue can be studied properly, declined Leslie's invitation to air his personal views.

"I think that my position relative to this issue is very well known," Neal said.

Assemblyman Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas, questioned Pescetta's statement that the majority of Nevada's death row inmates had worse representation because they could not retain the services of private defense attorneys or have their case heard by a judge of their own ethnicity.

"That almost would imply that those sitting (on the bench) now have some prejudices," Nolan said. "I don't think that's the way the system's supposed to work."

The committee also includes Assemblymen Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, and John Oceguera, D-North Las Vegas, and Sens. Mark James, R-Las Vegas, Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, and Maurice Washington, R-Sparks.

Nevada's death row has 86 inmates, who are 45 percent white, 41 percent black, 13 percent Hispanic and about 1 percent Asian. Statewide, whites make up 75.2 percent of residents, blacks 6.8 percent, Hispanics 19.7 percent, and Asians 4.5 percent.

Pescetta, who represents Thomas Nevius, an alleged mentally retarded inmate on death row, said Nevada's death penalty is "reserved for poor minorities."

"It cannot, or at least at this point does not, function as a rational penalty," he added.

Monday's session included testimony from death penalty opponents representing a variety of religious denominations, defense attorneys and the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

Future meetings will include testimony from law enforcement, the attorney general's office, judges, doctors and scientists.