Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Error will lead to man’s third trial in murder case

CARSON CITY – Levenral Polk is going to get a third trial on charges he fatally shot his friend, 22-year-old Walter Hodges, at a bus stop in Las Vegas – thanks to an error by the Clark County District Attorney’s Office.

Polk was originally convicted of first-degree murder, but the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that conviction on grounds of faulty jury instructions.

He was then tried a second time in Las Vegas, in 1999, and convicted of second-degree murder.

At the second trial, gunshot residue expert Laurie Kaminski testified. She talked about the results found in initial gunshot tests done by expert Michelle Fox, who didn't testify at the first trial and had since retired.

In his appeal, Polk said his constitutional rights were violated because he was never permitted to cross-examine Fox. He spent four pages in his appeal brief to the Supreme Court on the issue.

But the Supreme Court said the district attorney’s office never answered Polk’s argument. The district attorney’s office did talk about the issue at oral arguments.

The Supreme Court overturned the second-degree conviction and ordered a new trial. It said the district attorney’s office failed in its brief to answer the constitutional issue and whether the testimony of Kaminski was harmless error.

The court said the state’s failure to file an adequate response in its brief is a “confession of error.” It said the district attorney’s office filed a lengthy brief but didn't address the issue of Polk’s rights being violated.

It said it considers “the state’s silence to be a confession of error on this issue” and it ordered another trial.

Polk, 34, was sentenced to 20 years to life and has been serving the term at the Southern Desert Correctional Center in Clark County.

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