Death penalty foe to head panel

Friday, Sept. 7, 2001 | 10:23 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Sophomore Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, an opponent of capital punishment who will head an interim legislative study of the death penalty, said her committee will "air all sides of the issue."

Leslie's committee was appointed Thursday during a meeting of the Legislative Commission, a bipartisan group of legislators that handles legislative business when the Legislature is not in session.

The commission named a number of committees to study various issues before the 2003 session opens, but the most politically charged committee will be the one looking at the death penalty, an issue that split the 2001 Legislature.

The committee was given a budget of $11,540, enough for six meetings.

Leslie said she hoped the other seven members will come with an "open mind" but she added she was "not positive" a consensus can be reached on whether capital punishment should be retained in Nevada.

She sponsored a bill calling for abolishing the death penalty for the mentally retarded. It passed the Assembly but never got out of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate.

She said the trend in other states is toward stopping the execution of the mentally retarded and that the U.S. Supreme Court may decide the issue by the 2003 Legislature.

Leslie cited accusations and rumors of unfair imposition of the death penalty. She said there are stories of prosecutors picking out minorities and the poor in seeking the death penalty.

"We want to separate fact from fiction," she said.

She promised hearings both in Las Vegas and Northern Nevada. She said she was "disappointed" the Legislature approached the issue "from the heart" and doesn't want the hearings to become hysterical.

Leslie opposes the death penalty on moral grounds but pledged to give all sides an opportunity to present testimony and evidence.

A bill was introduced in the last session to abolish the death penalty, but it was changed in the Senate to a two-year moratorium on executions and then died in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. The study was then ordered.

Others on the study committee are Sen. Joe Neal, D-Las Vegas, who introduced the bill to eliminate the death penalty; Sen. Mark James, R-Las Vegas, who favored the two-year moratorium, and Sens. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, and Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, who both voted against the moratorium.

Others on the death penalty committee are John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas; Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, who is an opponent of the death penalty, and Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas.