Debate intensifies over whether sentencing push targets homeless

By Timothy Pratt

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 | 10:55 a.m.

Las Vegas prosecutors and downtown business owners alike have repeatedly denied in recent days that the city's push to give chronic offenders longer sentences targets the homeless, but a morning spent observing trials in two municipal courtrooms showed:

For Lance Maningo, one of the defense lawyers involved in the cases, the first two observations from July 13 sessions at Las Vegas Municipal Court mean one thing: "if they say 'repeat offenders' versus 'the homeless,' it's a distinction with no practical difference."

But City Attorney Brad Jerbic said the numbers were too small to draw any conclusions.

"I'm not going to make any comment based on one day in court," he said.

Jerbic said in an earlier interview that he is concerned his office's new strategy "would catch some dolphins in the net." The strategy, he said, is meant to crack down on crime, particularly in the downtown area.

At the same time, however, Jerbic said he has not seen evidence that anyone -- including the homeless -- is being targeted.

Defense attorneys working the cases and the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada said the results in the two courtrooms Tuesday offer a glimpse of what municipal court will begin to look like if the city's push continues.

"If we keep continuing down this course, we're going to keep asking for trial dates, they're going to keep having to subpoena officers and the resources are going to keep going out," said defense lawyer Cindy McCaughey.

"This is simply not a solution," she said.

Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said, "If everyone goes to trial, the system will collapse under its own weight."

But Jerbic said the city's strategy "uses a lot less resources than are involved in dealing with this every day."

"If an officer is constantly dealing with the same person and booking him every day, we're spending a lot more and depriving the community of a police officer and the revolving door is more costly," he said.

Defense lawyer Robert Langford -- McCaughey's boss -- said that the current push will only result in filling up the jail with homeless men.

"We're going to create a $50-a-day homeless facility and call it the Las Vegas jail," he said.

Allen Lichtenstein, a lawyer with the ACLU of Nevada, called attention to the high percentage of mentally ill among the homeless, in light of the current crisis Clark County has declared in combatting mental illness.

"There's no secret that the way the system is dealing with the crisis of the mentally ill among the homeless is to simply put them in jail," he said.

McGauhey's trials Tuesday morning involved two men who had told her in previous interviews that they were homeless. Leonard George Bennett was charged with trespassing; Paul Davis was charged with trespassing, walking in a roadway and possessing drug paraphernalia. The last charge, McCaughey said, was based on Davis standing on a pipe in the alleyway where he was arrested -- what the attorney called "a trumped-up charge."

Both men had faced similar charges in the past. Davis also was charged with a felony 20 years ago.

The city attorney's pursuit of 180-day sentences in both cases -- and, in Davis' case, the allegation that standing on the pipe was possession -- prompted McCaughey to take the cases to trial.

But the officers who were to serve as witnesses didn't appear and the charges were dismissed. Bennett and Davis were freed Tuesday; they had served 21 days in jail.

After the cases were dismissed, Martin Orsinelli, deputy attorney for the city attorney's office, said that officers probably did not get the subpoenas in time.

"The police will be here -- the sheriff supports us," he said. Orsinelli declined further comment.

In the other courtroom, Maningo's six clients included three men who were homeless.

The charges against them, variously, were: trespassing, consuming alcohol where bought, pedestrian failing to obey traffic signal and jaywalking. One of the men, Robert Maestas, was charged with obstructing an officer. Maestas was sleeping on the street and didn't move when the officer asked him to get up, Maningo said.

One of the other defendants, Karl Dooley, had five charges of trespassing from April 17 to May 31 alone. The city attorney asked for a 90-day sentence for Dooley.

The three men had been in jail between a month and 42 days.

Though at least five police officers had come to the courtroom as witnesses, deals were reached at the last minute, extending jail time for all three of the defendants. Two of the defendants, though, were let go the same day, an early release for good behavior.

Afterward, Maningo said, "in essence, we called the city attorney's bluff -- they gave us an offer; we say, 'Okay, let's go to trial.' The extended sentence is something we can't accept for our clients," he said.

McCaughey said she would continue to seek trials as long as the city continued to seek extended sentences.

"They've backed us into a corner," she said. "This is what we have to do."