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November 29, 2009

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6 executed by orders of judges

Tuesday, June 25, 2002 | 9:47 a.m.

Six men have been executed in Nevada by order of three-judge panels -- among them Jesse Bishop, one of the first people put to death in the United States after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Currently 17 convicted murderers -- a dozen from Clark County -- are on death row as a result of rulings by three-judge panels.

Still in limbo is what will happen to those sentences in the wake of Monday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that only juries can determine if a person is to be put to death.

"Between 70 and 80 percent of the time, the three-judge panels in Nevada have ruled in favor of death," said Deputy Federal Public Defender Michael Pescetta, whose office has opposed such judicial panels.

Jesse Walter Bishop, who killed Baltimore newlywed David Ballard while he was honeymooning in Las Vegas in 1977, was the first execution in Nevada after the death penalty was affirmed. Unrepentant to the end, the 46-year-old was put to death on Oct. 22, 1979, the last person to die in Nevada's gas chamber.

Others who faced Nevada three-judge panels and were put to death were:

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