Sunday, February 02, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Death penalty reform on legislative agenda

Bills deal with retarded, juveniles, three-judge panels

Senior correction officer Johnnie Hill adjusts a restraint July 9 in the execution chamber at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. Warden Mike Budge, rear, said the death chamber is in an area of the prison that is too crowded and recent court rulings have created uncertainty over the future of capital punishment. Photo by CATHLEEN ALLISON / AP

CARSON CITY -- Though there has yet to be a call for a moratorium on executions, and though no Nevada death row inmate is in immediate jeopardy of seeing his sentence carried out, capital punishment issues will be at the forefront of the 2003 Legislature.

Bills banning the execution of the mentally retarded and eliminating the use of three-judge panels to impose death sentences in some cases will be heard in the Assembly Judiciary Committee beginning next week. Those changes to Nevada's death penalty law must occur because of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

And another effort to ban executions of those who were juveniles when their crimes were committed also is expected, which should prove more controversial. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up this issue earlier this year. Nevada allows the death penalty to be imposed on teens as young as 16. An effort to change the law in 2001 failed.

"We're going to hit the ground running on the death penalty bills," said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno. "But I don't think it's going to be a smooth process."

But it should still be less intense than in 2001, when a former state senator called unsuccessfully for a controversial moratorium on executions, and inmate Sebastian Bridges was executed for a Las Vegas murder.

Leslie, who served as chairwoman of an interim study of death penalty issues following the 2001 session, said a lower level of intensity on the subject may prove helpful as lawmakers consider the various proposals.

"It's a little less emotional, which I think is better," she said. "I'm hopeful it will be more deliberative."

But though lawmakers are obligated to change Nevada statute regarding the execution of the retarded and in the use of three-judge panels, no mandate exists concerning execution of juveniles.

Leslie said any effort to change the law will be a challenge, given the Washington, D.C.-area sniper case involving Lee Boyd Malvo, who is 17, and the recent slaying in Mesquite of 3-year-old Kristyanna Cowen, in which a 16-year-old girl has been implicated. Kristyanna's older half-sister was left paralyzed in the attack. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty against either of the two suspects in that case.

"The political climate is not great for this bill," she said. "Getting people to separate the horrible crime from the issue of whether we as a society should be executing juveniles is very difficult. Emotions may run high."

The ban on capital punishment for those under 18 just missed an endorsement from the interim study panel, and it failed because of the position of Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, a death penalty opponent. Neal said he would not vote for the ban on capital punishment for juvenile offenders because the vote could be misconstrued as support for the death penalty for adults.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, who sought the ban on capital punishment for those under 18 two years ago, said she will try again.

"We're not talking about releasing these people, we're talking about a sentence of life in prison," Giunchigliani said.

Of the 38 states that have the death penalty, 16 prohibit it for those who were under 18 when they committed their crimes. The federal government also bans capital punishment for juveniles.

Nevada has one such death row inmate. Michael Domingues was 16 in 1993 when he killed a woman and her 4-year-old son in Las Vegas when they returned home during a robbery.

As for the mental retardation and three-judge panel issues, prosecutors, defense attorneys and lawmakers are discussing how to implement the changes, Giunchigliani said.

But Assistant Federal Public Defender Michael Pescetta, who represents some Nevada death row inmates in their appeals, said that could prove difficult. There is a divide between prosecutors and defense attorneys on the three-judge panel question, he said.

Pescetta said he believes all three-judge panels ultimately will be found to be unconstitutional. Prosecutors have argued that only the panels used when juries deadlock on a punishment were affected by last year's U.S. Supreme Court case. Several death row inmates who pleaded guilty to first degree murder have had death sentences handed down by three-judge panels.

A compromise is being discussed in which a defendant who pleads guilty to first-degree murder would be given the choice between a three-judge panel or a jury to decide punishment, Pescetta said.

Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Ben Graham, who serves as a lobbyist for the office in the Legislature, said the success of the death penalty legislation also depends on the views of the 16 new lawmakers elected in November who have no previous legislative experience.

Though the death penalty in Nevada remains a hotly contested issue, the past two years have seen very few death sentences imposed. Only one occurred in 2001, and that sentence is a candidate for reversal because of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on three-judge panels.

Only one death sentence was imposed in 2002, in a Reno-area case. Also in 2002, two death sentences were reversed, one was commuted and two death row inmates died of natural causes.

The actual death row population declined by four in 2002, to 81 men and one woman. There has not been an execution in Nevada since Bridges was put to death by lethal injection in April 2001.