Cops say delays for warrants a problem

Jen Lawson

Monday, July 19, 2004 | 10:54 a.m.

The body wasn't going anywhere, but it took more than a dozen phone calls before Metro Police reached a judge to approve the search warrant that allowed them to open a freezer that served as a makeshift coffin last week.

Police access to judges during non-business hours is an ongoing frustration, police said, and Chief Judge Kathy Hardcastle said Wednesday she plans to address the issue "to see if there's something we can work out to make it easier."

It was after hours July 8 when a neighbor reported that 64-year-old Lawrence Pruett's sometime roommate, Bradley Millisor, 45, was dead in a freezer in the driveway of Pruett's home near Lake Mead and Nellis boulevards.

Homicide investigators began calling judges to get approval to open the white Kenmore freezer, which was secured with a padlock.

An hour and 15 minutes after investigators started calling around to judges, Judge Allan Earl orally approved the warrant. He was the 14th judge that investigators had phoned.

Police cut the lock off with bolt cutters and found Millisor inside with a gunshot wound in his chest.

Every second counts in a homicide investigation because forensic evidence could diminish and a killer could remain free, Monahan said.

Police obtain search warrants after hours either by typing the document and going to a judge's home for his or her signature or by establishing the probable cause during a taped phone call with the judge.

The judge can either agree there is sufficient cause for the search or reject the request for the warrant.

Lt. Tom Monahan, head of the department's homicide section, said the situation last week "was not the exception" and frequent delays were frustrating.

But District Court spokesman Michael Sommermeyer said the snag police experienced last Thursday night was not typical.

All of the county's 33 district court judges are always on call to approve police search warrants, he said.

"Based on what I can gather it was an anomaly," Sommermeyer said. "We've given (police) all (the judges') numbers, their cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses, it's just a matter of finding one."

But Monahan said that the current system effectively winds up being one in which "there is no on-call judge system here" because no one judge is specifically assigned the night duty.

A reason why Clark County hasn't implemented this system is because disseminating a list of periodic duty judges would be a chore, Hardcastle said.

Police last week might not have been using an updated roster with the judges' phone numbers, Hardcastle said, which could have been part of the problem.

"They can always find someone," she said. "Sometimes it might take a little longer. It's not an unusual complaint to hear this time of year" because many judges are on vacation.

But she said she plans to bring up the issue with the criminal judges to see if they can work with police to streamline the system.

William Dressel, president of the Reno-based Nevada Judicial College and a judge in Colorado for 22 years, said he thinks the on-call or duty judge system is preferable. Some jurisdictions give duty judges cell phones solely for that purpose.

"When it rings you know who it is, and that way you can order your personal life" to accommodate being on call. Jurisdictions that have duty judges don't pay more to compensate them, Dressel said, adding that "it's just part of the job."

Other nearby jurisdictions use the duty judge system. Washoe County has a roster of on-call judges, so does Los Angeles, court spokesmen said.

Maricopa County in Arizona, which encompasses the Phoenix valley, has an overnight "initial appearance court," a spokesman said, and judges there are available to police.

The Clark County District Attorney's Office has four or five deputy district attorneys who, on a rotating basis, give legal advice to police who are investigating crimes, District Attorney David Roger said.

"It's not a pleasant duty because there are times when they can get calls all through the night," Roger said.