Chairez targets undecided voters in DA race

Don Chairez hopes to convince undecided voters to help him unseat District Attorney David Roger.

Political experts said Chairez is fighting an uphill battle against Roger, a two-term incumbent who snagged most of the county's law enforcement endorsements. Roger is well-known for high profile prosecutions such as Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy in the Ted Binion murder case and O.J. Simpson for kidnapping and armed robbery.

But four in 10 likely Clark County voters said they hadn't made up their mind who they'll vote for in the DA's race, according to a September poll sponsored by the Review-Journal and 8NewsNow.

In that poll, Roger drew 36 percent of the support and Chairez, 23 percent.

At stake in the race is the job of the county's top prosecutor. The district attorney's office has a $65 million budget and handles about 65,000 cases annually. The office represents the Clark County Commission and other county agencies.

The criminal division of the office prosecutes all felony crimes and many misdemeanors within the county.

In his television ad, Roger points to his eight years at the helm, a 25 percent drop in the valley's crime rate and his focus on prosecuting career criminals. He was elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006.

Chairez calls for a revision of the coroner's inquest process, and he dubbed the recent high-profile coroner's inquests in the Trevon Cole and Erik Scott cases as an "Achilles' heel for Roger as the county's chief legal officer responsible for conducting these inquests."

Scott and Cole were shot and killed by Las Vegas police officers during separate events earlier this year. The two men became the faces of a call for change to the coroner's inquest process, and Chairez promised he would help with that change if elected as district attorney on Nov. 2.

His television spot accuses Roger of preferential treatment in the courtroom in exchange for campaign contributions using Paris Hilton's cocaine arrest as an example. He points out a $10,000 donation on Roger's 2009 annual campaign finance report from Hilton's high-profile Las Vegas-based lawyer, David Chesnoff.

According to the finance reports, Roger received almost $30,000 from Chesnoff and his associates. Donations from Chesnoff to Roger's campaign date back to 2001.

Chairez spent four years as a county prosecutor early in his law career and another four on the District Court bench. He has run for Congress, the Nevada Supreme Court and attorney general. He remained a registered Republican until last year, when he became a Democrat. He said he switched because as a moderate he felt the Republican party was being dominated by the Tea Party.

Although it is a partisan race, both Chairez and Roger, a Republican, have said the district attorney is not a political position.

Contact Kristi Jourdan at kjourdan@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.