Prison officials waiting for official order on execution

Monday, Feb. 23, 2004 | 11:16 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A 34-year-old Las Vegas killer, who has been ordered executed, will probably be transferred to Carson City to await his date with death, a prison official said today.

Glen Whorton, assistant director in the state Department of Corrections, said the agency is awaiting the official order from District Judge Donald Mosley who has scheduled the execution of Lawrence Colwell Jr. for the week of March 15. The death sentence carried out by Nevada was on April 21, 2001, when Sebastian Bridges was put to death.

Eight of the nine people given lethal injections by the state since 1979 have voluntarily abandoned their court appeals. Colwell told Mosley on Friday that he did not want to continue his legal appeals.

Colwell has repeatedly protested appeals filed on his behalf by federal public defender Michael Pescetta, Chief Deputy District Attorney Clark Peterson said. Colwell also filed a motion Friday to fire Pescetta as his attorney and to withdraw a federal petition Pescetta has pending before U.S. District Judge Howard D. McKibben in Reno. "(Colwell has) always preferred death to life without the possibility of parole," Peterson, who heads the district attorney's capital cases, said.

Colwell pleaded guilty and argued for the death penalty before a three-judge panel.

"He said if he wasn't put to death he would kill again," Peterson said. "He did everything he could to receive the death penalty."

Pescetta declined to comment this morning on the case and whether he intends to continue the appeal process despite Colwell's wishes. There is no date set for McKibben to hear Pescetta's Jan. 13 writ of habeas corpus filed on Colwell's behalf.

Once the corrections department gets the order from the judge, the department will set a specific execution date and will begin lining up those who want to bewitnesses, Whorton said. He said that Colwell, who was in Las Vegas for the court hearing, would probably be transferred to Carson City, instead of being returned to death row in the Ely prison.

The prison does not want to make unnecessary transfers of inmates, Whorton said.

Execution in Nevada is by lethal injection. The inmate is tied to a gurney and wheeled into the death chamber where tubes are attached for injection of the lethal substance.

Colwell and his girlfriend, Merillee Paul, robbed and murdered 76-year-old Frank Rosenstock on March 10, 1994 at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas.

Court documents say Paul went with the victim to his room on the pretext of having sex with him. She then let Colwell into the room, and he handcuffed and strangled the victim with a belt, according to court records.

Colwell and Paul fled to Oregon where she turned in herself to authorities. She pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and testified against Colwell. She received a life term with possibility of parole.