Sisolak: Proposal for death row inmates was ‘act of grace’

CARSON CITY — Gov. Steve Sisolak said Tuesday that his now-failed proposal to commute the death sentences of all 57 prisoners on death row in Nevada was “an act of grace.”

Sisolak, who lost his bid for reelection against Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo in November, said during a state pardons board meeting that he could not leave the governor’s office without “starting the necessary conversations” over capital punishment.

“Placing this matter on the agenda was done as an act of grace and with the understanding that the death penalty is fundamentally broken,” the governor said, speaking from Las Vegas. “The state has not carried out an execution since 2006. That means that families of the victims are held in limbo, reliving painful memories for years on end without any closure.”

Sisolak first suggested that all death sentences in the state should be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but controversy immediately ensued. The Washoe County district attorney’s office filed a motion in Carson City District Court to block the move, and a judge on Monday granted the motion.

Judge James Wilson ruled the move would violate state law, regulations and the state constitution, primarily because it failed to give proper notice to the families of murder victims or allow them to be heard in opposition to clemency. The judge also said those on death row have failed to exhaust their appeals, have not applied for clemency from the board and that cases must be considered on an individual basis.

As a result, item No. 6 on Tuesday’s agenda was removed. The item had been added to the board’s agenda by Sisolak last Wednesday, just three business days prior to Tuesday’s meeting.

Mark Jackson, the Douglas County district attorney and president of the Nevada District Attorneys Association, said he and other district attorneys across the state were “shocked” when they learned of the added agenda item.

“We weren’t aware that this was something that the governor was planning on doing,” he said. “There was there was no other indications or notices that were provided to us.”

The move by the board was “absolutely” unprecedented, Jackson said.

Jackson said he and other district attorneys felt the proposal was in violation of the state’s constitution, Nevada Revised Statutes and the Nevada Administrative Code, arguments which were successfully made before Wilson by the Washoe County district attorney’s office.

DAs oppose repeal

The Nevada Legislature has repeatedly failed to pass bills that have been introduced to ban the death penalty over the last six years. In 2021, a repeal effort passed the Assembly, but died in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sisolak at the time said he generally opposed the death penalty, but wanted exceptions for especially heinous cases, such as the 1 October mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Jackson said the Nevada Distritct Attorneys Association has opposed those bills in the past and will continue to do so.

“We are committed to protecting the rights of victims and fighting for justice for victims and their surviving family members and we will never waver from that,” he said.

Sisolak’s proposal was also rejected by fellow Democrat U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

“As a former prosecutor, I believe the death penalty should be on the table for those who have committed the worst of the worst violent crimes,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “I have always stood up for victims and their families to be informed, attend, and be heard at all stages of the criminal justice process. That’s why I oppose this proposal.”

Ruling attacked

But others slammed Wilson’s ruling, including criminal defense attorney Dayvid Figler.

Figler said he found Wilson’s order “very strange” and said the judge’s interpretation of the state’s constitution and related statutes was “unprecedented.”

“This type of constitutional analysis typically doesn’t fall at the end of the day into the hands of a judge who doesn’t really have a case or controversy in front of him. And yet, Judge Wilson took the opportunity to make what is in essence a constitutional holding,” he said.

Figler also said the governor’s move to add the item to the agenda did, in fact, follow the rules of the pardons board, and questioned why the attorney general’s office, who was defending the board during Monday’s hearing, neglected to appeal Wilson’s decision.

“This whole thing would have, if it had gone to the Nevada Supreme Court, would have given the Nevada Supreme Court an opportunity to make it very clear what the powers of the pardons board are or are not, and what the implications of Marsy’s law are or are not,” he said. “And yet all that has now been sidestepped because the district attorney in an in a neighboring county brought a lawsuit and the judge found that it had merit.”

A request for comment from the attorney general’s office was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Lombardo, a career cop who currently serves as sheriff of the Metropolitan Police Department, praised Wilson’s ruling Monday and said it comports with a victim’s rights amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 2018.

Although the governor of Oregon recently commuted all death sentences in that state, in Nevada, clemency power belongs to the Pardons Board, comprised of the governor, the attorney general and the seven justices of the Nevada Supreme Court.

Contact Steve Sebelius at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253. Follow @SteveSebelius on Twitter. Contact Taylor R. Avery at TAvery@reviewjournal.com. Follow @travery98 on Twitter.