Other crimes might make way into new death penalty hearing

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 | 9:24 a.m.

District Judge Lee Gates decided Monday that a jury that will reconsider Donte Johnson's death sentence in the 1998 execution-style killings of four young men will also hear about allegations that Johnson was involved in an attack on a fellow inmate.

Although the state dismissed charges against Johnson, 24, after Oscar Irias was thrown over a balcony at Clark County Detention Center, Gates said there was enough credible evidence to allow the incident to be included in Johnson's new penalty phase, scheduled for Oct. 18.

The Nevada Supreme Court ordered a new death-penalty phase for Johnson after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that only a jury could impose the death penalty. A three-judge panel had sentenced Johnson to death after the original jury could not agree on the penalty.

Johnson was sentenced to death row by the three-judge panel for the murders of Matthew Mowen, 19, Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringe, 20, and Peter Talamantez, 20.

Gates said he based his decision to admit the balcony incident on the testimony of both Clark County Detention Center Corrections Officer Alexander Gonzalez and Irias, as well as the stipulations in the plea agreement of Reginald Johnson, who took responsibility for the attack on Irias. Reginald Johnson, who is not related to Donte, pleaded guilty in the attack

Gates said he found Gonzalez's testimony more credible than that of several prison inmates who were being held at the detention center at the time of the Irias incident, not because they were all "murderers and robbers" but because their "testimony made no sense at all."

Gates read a segment of Irias' testimony in which he said both Donte and Reginald Johnson attacked and threw him off the balcony.

Special Public Defender Alzora Jackson argued the Irias matter shouldn't be introduced because Reginald Jackson admitted to being the sole offender and because the state dismissed charges against Donte Johnson.

Reginald Johnson had agreed to plead guilty to the attack only of charged were dropped against Donte Johnson, Gates noted.

Gates will decide on Aug. 9 whether to allow jurors to hear about two other matters involving Johnson.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger has argued for admitting Johnson's attempted murder of Derrick Simpson. Johnson entered an Alford plea, the equivalent to a no-contest, in which a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges the state could prove its case.

The state argues the May 1998 shooting, which left Simpson a quadriplegic, was also the cause of his death a few years later. Roger now wants that death included in the Johnson's penalty hearing.

The defense has been given until the August hearing to have its own autopsy expert examine the death of Simpson and to prepare a subsequent argument on why the evidence should not be admitted.

The second act involves the strangulation of Darnell Johnson in August 1998 at the Thunderbird hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard near Charleston Boulevard, which has never been prosecuted. Donte Johnson was considered a suspect in the death.

Gates admitted all of Johnson's juvenile records during a May 3 hearing.