Commissioner proposes changing inquest process to comply with Supreme Court decision

The coroner's inquest process could be back on track just two weeks after it was struck down by the Nevada Supreme Court.

County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani is proposing a change to the county code that would remove justices of the peace from the process, bringing it into compliance with the court's decision last week.

Commissioners could vote on the change at their Nov. 6 meeting, but Commissioner Steve Sisolak said that might be premature. The board is also scheduled to go into a private session after the meeting to discuss the subject with county lawyers, and he wants to hear from everyone involved before moving forward with a new ordinance.

"I think we need to be patient and get it right," he said in an email.

Other commissioners hadn't read Giunchigliani's proposal or weren't able to be reached for comment. Giunchigliani, who is out of the country, also was not reached.

The meeting agenda is scheduled to be released today .

Clark County has held inquests - quasi-legal hearings in front of a panel of citizens - into police-involved deaths for more than four decades. But they stopped in 2010 after two controversial Las Vegas police shootings prompted commissioners to overhaul the process.

The board's changes included allowing a county-appointed lawyer to represent the family of the deceased and ask questions of the involved officers, in addition to a county prosecutor.

Police sued, arguing that the new process violated their Fourth Amendment right to due process and that the county couldn't require that justices of the peace preside over inquests.

There is a backlog of 17 police-involved deaths awaiting an inquest hearing.

But last week the court ruled that while officers' due process rights weren't violated, they agreed with police that commissioners overstepped their bounds by requiring the involvement of the judges.

Bringing the code into compliance with the ruling should be a relatively simple fix, however.

Giunchigliani's proposal removes any mention in the code of justices of the peace being involved and hands oversight to "presiding officers" appointed by the county.

Those officers would have to have at least three years experience as a lawyer or other sufficient experience in the legal system.

Those are the same people, known as hearing masters, who for decades presided over inquests until commissioners changed that a few years ago.

Any changes to the process next week could be a moot point because officers won't participate, said Chris Collins, executive director of the union that oversees the Metropolitan Police Department's rank-and-file officers.

"If they make a change of going back to hearing masters, that's not enough of a change," Collins said. "The officers will not participate in the inquest."

Officers involved in the deaths would have to show up to the inquest, but would have the right to decline to talk about what happened during the death.

Collins also noted that officers also have a case against the inquest process before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and any changes would be pointless until that court renders a decision. That could take years.

For the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, general counsel Allen Lichtenstein said that he supports anything that solves the inquest's problem. The inquest process provides an unusual amount of transparency in the events surrounding a death at the hands of an officer.

"Saving this process is of paramount importance," Lichtenstein said.

Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-405-9781.