Death penalty reform debated

Erin Neff

Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 | 11:04 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Lawmakers were told Monday that if they don't invest more money in the legal defense of people facing the death penalty local governments will be liable to pay much higher amounts in lawsuits.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee began hearings on death penalty reform with a bill that would increase compensation for public defenders in first-degree murder cases as a means to also increase the competency of counsel.

An interim legislative committee studying problems with the death penalty submitted Assembly Bill 17 as a way of providing more resources to the defense in capital cases.

The bill would increase the total fee paid lawyers in death cases from $12,000 to $20,000 and creates a list of defense team personnel required if the public defender's office is skirted for directly appointed legal defense.

Special public defender Michael Pescetta, who has death row clients, testified that 64 percent of Clark County's first-degree murder cases are reversed on appeal.

"The most common basis for reversal is ineffectiveness of defense counsel," Pescetta said.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, asked whether a recent decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could affect Clark County resources.

The Feb. 3 decision determined Robert Miranda, who spent 14 years on Nevada's death row, can sue Clark County and his former public defender for poor legal representation.

Miranda's conviction in the 1981 stabbing death of Manuel Torres in Las Vegas was erased on appeal, and he was never retried.

"It is always the case when it comes to money in capital cases that trying to do anything cheap on the front end leads to a variety of fiscal concerns in the long run," Pescetta said. "If a jury ultimately is asked to say what is Mr. Miranda's 14 years on death row worth, it could be a significant cost to the county."

Pescetta said that while no state agency compiles statistics on how many reversed decisions are based on ineffective counsel, he suspects roughly half of such cases are the result of inexperienced lawyers.

He told lawmakers it was "pennywise and pound foolish" to try to save money at the front end of a case.

Kristin Erickson, chief deputy Washoe County district attorney, said she did not object to the increased compensation for public defenders handling capital murder cases because that pay has not increased since 1991.

However, she did object to bill's requirement of a defense team whenever a judge appoints private attorneys to represent a capital murder defendant. The bill calls for the defendant to be provided with two private attorneys, an investigator, a mitigation specialist, a forensic psychiatrist or psychologist and anyone else deemed necessary by the court.

"I don't even know what a mitigation specialist is," Erickson said.

Pescetta said the requirements are "minimum" and include what should be included in a proper defense. A mitigation specialist is someone who is adept at showing how a defendant's background or related life experiences should be considered in the penalty phase of trial, mitigating factors that should be highlighted as reasons why a convicted murderer should not be put to death.