Court rules in sealed records case

Friday, Dec. 10, 2004 | 9:55 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday that District Judge Donald Mosley erred when he ordered the unsealing of a prior criminal record of Sam D. Walker in Las Vegas who was facing drug trafficking charges.

The court said the unsealing of a criminal record is permitted only in certain instances and this was not one of them. It said, "We conclude that the district court manifestly abused its discretion when it ordered Walker's criminal records unsealed."

Walker was arrested in 1989 on a drug charge and a district court in 1998 ordered the criminal record sealed on grounds the charges were dismissed.

In June 2003, a SWAT team from the North Las Vegas Police department searched the home of Walker and arrested him on charges of drug trafficking, possession of a short-barrel shotgun and being a convicted person in possession of a firearm.

The case was turned over to the federal government for prosecution. But then the Clark County District Attorney's Office learned about the sealed record. It petitioned the court to allow the record to be disclosed because the state wanted to turn the information over to the U.S. Attorney's Office to use against Walker at the federal trial.

The Supreme Court said the 2003 arrest was a "wholly separate incident unrelated to the 1989 charges."

The court said the state could review a sealed criminal record to see whether there is now sufficient evidence to bring the person to trial on the dismissed charges. But the law does not permit state prosecutors to use the unsealed records against a defendant in an unconnected trial, the court said.

"Walker was not arrested as a result of newly discovered evidence related to the 1989 charge; instead, he was arrested on entirely new allegations based on conduct occurring in 2003," the court wrote. "The state presented no evidence that Walker's 2003 arrest was in any way connected to his conduct in 1989."

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