Lawmakers will consider death penalty reforms

Erin Neff

Monday, June 17, 2002 | 10:39 a.m.

When the Legislature convenes in February, 63 lawmakers will once again consider whether Nevada should ban the mentally ill from receiving the death penalty.

On Friday a legislative subcommittee studying the death penalty unanimously agreed to draft a bill to halt the practice.

"This is a huge victory," committee chairwoman and Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said after the six-hour work session.

Leslie sponsored a bill during the 2001 Legislature that would have prohibited anyone with an IQ under 70 from being sentenced to death. Such defendants would instead receive life sentences without the possibility for parole.

But her bill died in a session, where numerous attempts to reform or end Nevada's death penalty also were rejected in favor of a study, which Leslie's panel concluded last week.

The panel considered 32 possible reforms, but had only five available bill drafts to send to the full Legislature. As a result only the reforms that could receive bipartisan support in the panel will head to lawmakers.

That angered state Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas and a Democratic candidate for governor, who is stridently opposed to the death penalty.

As committee members pondered whether to request demographic data in capital cases as one of the bill drafts, Neal grew increasingly frustrated by the lack of support for an all-out moratorium on executions or banning of the penalty.

"We're talking after the fact," Neal said. "You know that's useless, because you can just go down to Death Row and see who's in there."

But part of the problem studying alleged problems with Nevada's capital punishment system has been obtaining records from prosecutors and courts about the race of victims and defendants.

"I think it is important," Leslie said.

The panel rejected a reform based on a Kentucky law allowing a defendant to claim at the time of his trial that race was a factor in the decision to seek the death penalty.

The committee also rejected a recommendation to prohibit anyone under 18 from being sentenced to death.

Part of the difficulty for winning approval for reforms stemmed from the committee rules, which stated any bill proposal that passes must have the support of two out of the three senators and three out of the four assemblymen on the panel.

When Republican Mark James resigned his state Senate post, the panel lost a moderate who favored many of the reforms. That left Neal needing to get support for reforms from the more conservative Sens. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, and Maurice Washington, R-Sparks.

"Do we want to stop this meeting right now and go home?" Neal asked when the rules were outlined.

But McGinness, Washington and Assemblyman Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas, did support ending death sentences for the mentally retarded.

The panel also will ask the Legislature to end the practice of three-judge panels, which determine the penalty phase of a trial when the jury cannot reach a unanimous decision.

The three-judge panel would still be used in cases where the defendant pleads guilty to a capital crime and waives a jury trial.

The committee also recommended adding mental illness as a mitigating factor juries must consider against aggravating factors when determining whether to impose a death sentence.

All of the recommendations must be approved by the Legislature.

But the bills requested by the committee will not be the only death penalty proposals lawmakers will see.

Neal promised to again draft legislation abolishing the death penalty, and others will likely take up a proposal to prohibit death sentences for those under 18.