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Thread: Nevada Capital Punishment News

  1. #1
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    Nevada Capital Punishment News

    Thought it would be best to start a new thread....

    The U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting arguments that lethal injection is unconstitutional won't result in executions in Nevada anytime soon.

    For one thing, Nevada's Supreme Court issued a stay of all executions in October pending the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Kentucky case.

    Deputy Director of Corrections Greg Smith said there are no inmates close to an execution date except William Castillo, whose execution was stayed last October pending the outcome in the Kentucky case.

    He said there are 84 inmates on Nevada's death row.

    Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said she doesn't intend to ask the Nevada court to lift the state's stay on executions at this point. Her staff is reviewing the federal opinion, which was issued Wednesday.

    She said the opinion appears to be "right on point" as to the arguments about the administration of the three different drugs used to execute inmates in Nevada and that she intends to file a copy of that opinion with the Nevada court.

    "We always felt there were adequate protocols in place," she said of Nevada's system.

    But she said the American Civil Liberties Union may have raised other issues in its Nevada case that were not addressed by the decision in the federal case.

    "We're just filing this opinion. This supports our argument. We'll let the court decide what to do with it," she said. "But we're still reviewing I think (whether) other arguments were made in the ACLU brief."

    The Nevada stay on executions, issued Nov. 15, 2007, halted the execution of Castillo, 35, just an hour before he was scheduled to die.

    He would have been the 13th Nevada inmate to die since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty. The first was Jesse Bishop in 1979, who was the last Nevada inmate put to death in the gas chamber.

    The state adopted lethal injection in 1983, which has since been used 11 times.

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    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has dropped its appeal challenging the lethal injection process.

    The ACLU brought the case on behalf of William Castillo, on death row for the murder of a Las Vegas school teach in 1995. Castillo has his own federal appeal in the works.

    The ACLU says a recent Supreme Court decision on lethal injections would make it difficult to win its case.

    http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=8653310

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    April 16, 2009

    A plan to study the costs of the death penalty in Nevada, amended to delete an execution moratorium during the study, won approval Wednesday in a 30-12 Assembly vote.

    The vote sending Assembly Bill 190 to the Senate along party lines, with all but two of the 14 Assembly Republicans opposing the plan.

    Assemblyman Ty Cobb, R-Reno, termed the idea "a waste of money," adding such a study should look for cost savings created by having the death penalty as an option for prosecutors.

    Several studies have said that the cost of capital punishment is greater than the cost of life in prison without parole. Some estimates are that prosecution and appeals for death penalty cases amount to $3 million to

    $4 million per inmate, about three times the cost of life-in-prison sentences.

    http://www.rgj.com/article/20090416/...904160349/1321

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    Bill to impose death penalty moratorium dies

    A bill that would have imposed a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty is now dead itself.

    Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, introduced Assembly Bill 190 on Feb. 18 calling for a study of the costs of capital punishment cases compared to non-death penalty cases. It included a section that there would not be any executions until July 1, 2011, while the study was conducted.

    The Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections tabled the bill Saturday after an impassioned speech by Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, a former district attorney.

    Raggio said this study bill "is a forerunner of doing away with capital punishment." He said he knew of "several cases where the offender did not kill because of the death penalty."

    Raggio was district attorney in Washoe County and prosecuted several death penalty cases.

    The moratorium on executions was removed from the bill in the Assembly.

    Sen. Bernice Mathews, D-Reno, said in this year of tight money, it seems that anybody could look up these costs. And she said that once completed the study "sits on the shelf, nobody looks at it."

    "The information is already out there," she said.

    Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, said he would work with North Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Stephen Dahl on the study. And Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, said that while he has respect for Judge Dahl, he agrees with Raggio.

    (Source: The Las Vegas Sun)

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    State official: Nevada execution chamber unusable

    CARSON CITY – The execution chamber at the ancient Nevada State Prison in Carson City is unusable and the state could not carry out a death penalty.

    Gus Nunez, manager of the state Public Works Board, Tuesday listed numerous violations at the prison including the death chamber which is not ADA accessible.

    He told the state Prison Board that an elevator would have to be installed on the outside to carry the public up to see the execution and there were code violations. And the stairs and hand rails leading up to the execution chamber violated the ADA code.

    The last execution was in 2006 and Greg Cox, interim director of the state Department of Corrections, said the state could not put an inmate to death because it doesn’t have the drug to do the job and a judge would probably stop the execution because of the code violations.

    There are no executions presently scheduled.

    It would cost thousands of dollars to correct the deficiencies associated with upgrading the death chamber.

    Curtis Brown, a 14-year correctional officer, disputed the testimony of Nunez and said “Executions could be carried out without a problem."

    Rebecca Gasca of the ACLU recommended the state impose a moratorium on the death penalty. She said a study should be done on the implications of capital punishment.

    A bill is sitting on the desk of the governor of Illinois to abolish the death penalty, she said.

    Gov. Brian Sandoval has recommended in his budget to the Legislature to close the prison at a savings of $16 million in the next two years. The inmates would be transferred to High Desert prison in Southern Nevada where there are two vacant dormitories with 600 beds.

    The board, with Sandoval as its chairman, did not take a position on closure of the prison. Secretary of State Ross Miller said that should be left up to the Legislature and the governor. Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, the third board member, was absent from the meeting.

    Cox said he has urged the Legislature to make a quick decision on the closure of the prison. It costs the state $700,000 for every month there is a delay. He said he would probably have to lay off 30-40 correctional officers instead of the initial estimate of 130 losing their jobs.

    The correctional officers could be transferred to other prisons.

    The board imposed a hiring freeze on the prison to allow flexibility of Cox to move correctional officers around when jobs become vacant.

    Cox is proposing a phased-down closure with it being fully shut down on Oct. 31 which is Nevada Day.

    http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011...n-chamber-unu/

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    Nevada bill might reduce death penalty appeals

    Reno police undercover narcotics officer Jimmy Hoff was about to make his last and biggest career drug bust before returning to patrol as a K-9 officer.

    Instead, the 32-year-old was fatally stabbed June 24, 1979, during an ambush at Idlewild Park that was planned and practiced by four young men whose aim was to rob him of $16,000 in cocaine money.

    Thirty-two years after a three-judge panel sentenced the ringleader, Thomas Edward Wilson, to death, he remains Nevada's longest standing death row inmate, to the dismay of Hoff's surviving relatives and the original police investigators.

    The delay is the result of appeals filed on his behalf *-- which for more than three decades have been denied by local, state and federal courts. Most, including an oral argument to the state high court last month, seek the same claims for relief.

    Wilson pleaded guilty to Hoff's first-degree murder, and his three accomplices are serving sentences of life without parole.

    In Wilson's appeal denials, judges have written there had been "overwhelming" evidence of guilt in the "premeditated" murder that was committed to rob Officer Hoff and receive his money.

    State Sen. Don Gustavson, R-Sparks, and a group of retired Reno police detectives will be testifying this morning during a state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on behalf of Senate Bill 283, which Gustavson hopes will help shave at least a few years off of "meritless" death penalty appeals so that inmates like Wilson don't linger on death row for decades.

    A death sentence is automatically appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court; all other appeals are voluntary. In 2010, the average time spent on death row in Nevada was about 17 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    The U.S. Supreme Court already has ruled that states are not required to provide attorneys in postconviction appeals. Nevada law mandates it, leaving judges no choice but to appoint a new attorney.

    Gustavson's amendment to the state's law on death penalty appeals would give judges discretion in appointing new lawyers, either when an inmate seeks to raise legal issues that mostly were denied in the past or claims that prior attorneys were ineffective.

    "The current system for dealing with capital appeals is dysfunctional, and the limited judicial resources of our courts is promising years of delay at the expense of the families' victims who deserve finality and closure," Gustavson said Thursday.

    But others said that this bill won't fix Nevada's death row problems and could keep innocent people on death row

    "We believe it would likely violate constitutional protections, such as equal protection and the Sixth Amendment," Washoe County Public Defender Jeremy Bosler said.

    Victim's family

    Hoff's siblings -- Patty Rowan of Las Vegas, Dennis George of Reno, and Sandra Hutchison of Woodland, Calif. -- support the proposal because they said Nevada's death penalty does not work, delaying justice.

    Eighty-two inmates are on death row in Nevada, according to the Nevada Department of Corrections. The state's last execution was in 2006, and that was only because the executed inmate, Reno serial killer Daryl Mack, gave up his appeals.

    "I worry they won't execute him in my lifetime," Rowan, 73, said of Wilson.

    Rowan said their mother, Lucille, died in 1997 brokenhearted because Wilson had still not faced justice.

    "That would make my life worth dying for," Rowan said. "When he got death, I thought it was a good sentence and he wouldn't be allowed to live. This has been going on way too long and there's gotta be a law that says 'this is enough' Families have to suffer through this, and it's horrible for all of them. We've got to fix the law."

    George and Hutchison said they are disappointed Wilson remains on death row.

    "I believe in a life for a life," Hutchison said. "It's so annoying to me that here it's been 32 years and he's still hanging in there. It makes no sense. I don't know a lot about the judicial system but it seems that after a certain amount of time something should be done. Nevada doesn't do anything."

    Opponents: This isn't the fix

    But not everyone is convinced that the proposal is the right way to solve the problem.

    Washoe County Public Defender Jeremy Bosler said his office supports the need for speedy justice, but there is an even greater need for accuracy.

    He said that in recent years, hundreds of death row inmates across the country have been exonerated following a closer look at their cases -- even though juries determined there had been overwhelming evidence against them.

    State and federal courts also affirmed many of those convictions, yet years later, evidence was discovered that forced prosecutors to dismiss charges, he said.

    "The idea that at the end of this complex litigation, a court, or some other government officer, is given the discretion to decide if a person facing execution should have a lawyer to prepare a direct appeal does not comport with our country's fundamental rights of due process," Bosler said.

    And while Washoe County District Attorney Richard Gammick, a Republican, said he supports the death penalty for deserving killers, he's not so sure changing the state law would make a difference. He said the federal 9th Circuit Appeals Court would have to agree the changes are constitutional; otherwise, the cases would continue to be sent back to lower courts for new hearings.

    "They're not even close to solving the problem," Gammick said of the proposal's affect on reducing languishing death penalty appeals. "Appeals keep going on ad nauseam because there's nothing to stop it. The politicians haven't taken it on."

    Supporters: Money could be saved, justice served.


    Retired Reno police detectives Wayne Teglia, who approached Gustavson to introduce the bill, and Dave Jenkins said the general public likely isn't aware of inmates languishing on death row for decades, even though juries and judicial panels voted they were the "worst of the worst" and deserve death.

    Both said the proposal is not a moral debate about the death penalty. Instead, it's about carrying out a legal sentence made available by the state Legislature. They also said that in this recession, it's simply too expensive to allow taxpayer money to be wasted on legal fees associated with senseless appeals.

    "It's a slap in the face of justice when sentences never get carried out," Jenkins said. "Right now, it's a system of a process of no ends and a lack of respect for the verdict. How can you have a just process when if 32 years later, you are still on death row? There is something fundamentally wrong with the system."

    Teglia said Wilson isn't the only local murderer languishing on death row. He pointed to Ricky Sechrest, who was sentenced to die in 1983 for kidnapping and killing two young girls in Reno; Siaosi Vanisi, sentenced to die in 1999 for the hatchet slaying of a University of Nevada, Reno officer; and serial killer David Middleton, who was sentenced in 1997 for the deaths of two women in Reno.

    "These guys are guilty as sin, and some have confessed," said Teglia, an original investigator in the Hoff killing. "The chance of error on death row with a guilty conviction is very hard now that DNA is so advanced. Now, victims' rights are not considered. The Nevada Legislature created this problem, and only they can fix it."

    http://www.rgj.com/article/20110408/...yssey=nav|head

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    Bill seeks execution moratorium in Nevada

    State lawmakers will consider a bill to impose a temporary moratorium on executions in Nevada.

    AB501 would suspend executions until July 1, 2013, but does not prohibit the imposition of new death sentences during that time.

    The bill also requires the Legislative Counsel Bureau to conduct a fiscal analysis comparing the cost of death penalty litigation to noncapital cases.

    The Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections will hear testimony on the bill Tuesday.

    http://www.rgj.com/article/20110412/...yssey=nav|head

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    Door to clang shut on ancient state prison

    The execution chamber at Nevada State Prison in Carson City is rarely used, partly because many on death row die of natural causes before appeals are through.

    CARSON CITY – The ancient Nevada State Prison, initially opened when Abraham Lincoln was president, is finally going to close.

    The Senate Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee voted Saturday to phase out the Carson City facility by April 2012 at a savings of more than $17 million.

    Most of the 682 inmates will be transferred to the High Desert State Prison in Clark County, along with 59 staff.

    Gov Brian Sandoval proposed in his budget the closure by Oct. 31 this year, but the budget committees, on the recommendation of Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, delayed the phase out.

    Horsford said more time was needed to plan the transfer and this would give the officers who are losing their jobs more time to find other employment. And those who are being transferred to High Desert will have more time to re-locate.

    The prison, one of the oldest in the United States, was a hotel when purchased by the state in 1862. It burned in 1867 and was rebuilt.

    There will be 105 positions eliminated by the closure. But Greg Cox, acting director of the state Department of Corrections, said some of those jobs have been kept vacant.

    He said only about 30 officers would lose their jobs. Almost all the officers will retain their employment if they want to move to Las Vegas or other prisons.

    Horsford, chairman of the Senate Finance, got assurance from Cox that there were no plans for building a new prison or for expanded facilities.

    Assemblyman Tom Grady, R-Yerington, complained the former corrections director didn’t do any maintenance on the state prison. He said he would not support closure because so many people are affected.

    The joint committees voted down the recommendation of Gov. Sandoval. And there was applause from prison employees in the audience.

    But then Sandoval offered the plan to keep it open six months longer than the recommendation and that passed.

    While the prison will be closed, the inmate license plate factory and the print shop/book bindery operation will be kept open with inmates housed at the nearby Stewart facility.

    The state’s only execution chamber is located at the prison. The correctional department said it would open the chamber if an execution was necessary. The last execution was in April 2006.

    Cox told the joint committees that the 712-bed state prison in Jean in Clark County, shut down some three years ago, remains closed. He said some other states and prison industry have looked at taking it over but they wanted a facility with 1,200 to 1,500 beds.

    The committees also voted to shut down the 150-bed honor camp at Wells. Sandoval initially recommended its closure but then pumped more than $2 million to keep it open.

    Inmates in the camp are used to battle range fires in northeast Nevada and they chop wood and clean snow on the sidewalks of senior citizens during the winter months.

    The Wells camp will also be phased out, closing in June 2012.

    The committees followed the recommendation of the governor to eliminate swing-shift differential pay for prison officers. These employees receive 5 percent extra if they work four hours between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m.

    The committees, however, rejected the recommendations of the governor to eliminate extra pay for working in rural prisons in Lovelock and Ely and a mileage differential for working at Indian Springs which is 25 miles outside metropolitan Las Vegas.

    http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011...-prison-close/

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    Lawmakers approve study to assess cost of death penalty

    Lawmakers are putting the death penalty under financial scrutiny.

    Senators approved AB501 with an 11-10 vote Saturday. The bill charges the state with the responsibility of tallying the cost of the state's death penalty. The assessment would include costs associated with pre-trial preparation and the trial itself. It would also include the cost of post-conviction proceedings, which encompasses challenges to the conviction and the competency of the defense.

    Nevada has never tallied the cost.

    During a hearing on the bill, supporters cited a 2008 study from the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice that found life without parole cost California taxpayers $11.5 million a year, compared with $137 million for those on death row.

    The bill returns to the Assembly.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...Death-Penalty/

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    CARSON CITY -- As the Legislature was rushing to adjourn at 1 a.m. Tuesday, Gov. Brian Sandoval was doing what he has done with increasing regularity during the 2011 legislative session: vetoing bills.

    Sandoval vetoed Assembly Bill 501, which would have required the legislative auditor to conduct an audit on the costs of the death penalty.

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