Flaws Found in Majority of Nevada Death Row Cases

A new study shows that judges handling appeals from condemned Nevada inmates find errors in two-thirds of the cases--a startling finding that has fueled new efforts to stop executions.

The Columbia University study says the errors helped death row convicts win 34 of 101 appeals filed in state courts from 1973 to 1995. The report also listed two of four appeals in federal courts that succeeded.

The study says Nevada’s error rate matches a national rate that has reached “epidemic” levels, and points to problems such as poor defense representation and improper tactics by overzealous prosecutors.

In Nevada, the American Civil Liberties Union mainly blamed prosecutors and pointed to recent high-profile cases in which evidence favorable to the defense was withheld.

“There’s no question that the culture of Nevada reinforces a certain amount of recklessness on the part of its district attorneys,” says University of Nevada, Reno professor Richard Siegel, head of the Nevada ACLU.

“I’m not sure the public cares,” Siegel adds. “The public cheers on the cowboy prosecutor. But I think things will change when the public stops cheering them on.”

Siegel says the report will help anti-death penalty groups that have formed in northern and southern Nevada. They plan to ask the 2001 Legislature for a moratorium on capital punishment and changes to ensure it’s not used on the mentally disabled or on anyone under 18.

Lawmakers in recent years have tried to speed the appeals process in capital cases, and Siegel fears such efforts will continue.

“But the data in the report says that would be a horrible mistake,” he says. “It says we need all the time that we’re taking now--and more.”

The study comes at a time of increased debate over capital punishment. That debate focuses in part on the Nevada case of Jack Mazzan, whose death sentence was canceled last January by the state Supreme Court after he spent 20 years on death row. He now faces a retrial next January in Reno.

In reversing Mazzan’s conviction, the court criticized prosecutors for not giving the defense information about other suspects-- alleged drug dealers who hadn’t been paid for thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs supplied to the victim, Richard Minor Jr.

Elsewhere in the United States, Republican Gov. George Ryan of Illinois imposed a moratorium on capital punishment in his state after 13 death row inmates were exonerated.

Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center, a group critical of how capital punishment is administered, said: “It’s amazing how many mistakes are being made. . . . Those supporting the death penalty might look at it and say, this isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Public support for capital punishment remains high. A Gallup Poll in February showed 66% back the use of death sentences.

Ben Graham of the Nevada District Attorneys Assn. says the Columbia University study has brought out “people who are dyed-in-the-wool anti-death penalty.

“They’ll utilize every tool to show that the death penalty is flawed,” Graham said, adding, “We don’t need to jump on the bandwagon and do a wholesale revamping of the process.”

Washoe County District Attorney Dick Gammick, who is handling the new prosecution of Mazzan, says it’s unfair to blame the error rate in death penalty cases on “cowboy” prosecutors.

Gammick says courts continually change the rules in capital cases, accounting for many of the successful appeals.

He asserts that some defense lawyers “build errors into their cases” to help get a conviction reversed later based on inadequate legal counsel.

Capital punishment resumed in 1977 after a Supreme Court-imposed moratorium, and 313 people had been executed by the end of 1995. In recent years, judges and lawmakers have acted to speed up death penalty reviews in federal courts, and the national execution total now exceeds 640.

Since 1977, however, 86 others have been exonerated of capital crimes after getting initial death sentences.

There are 89 people on Nevada’s death row, including one woman. Nevada has executed eight inmates since 1977, all of them men who rejected additional appeals even though that option was available.

Besides Nevada’s high error rate, the study also found that Nevada ranks third, behind Idaho and Wyoming, in the percentage of death penalties imposed in murder cases. The report also says Nevada’s death sentence rate of 11 people per 100,000 population is three times the national average.

But Nevada is ranked 24th in actually carrying out executions.

The Columbia study examined 4,578 death penalty cases in which at least one round of appeals was completed.

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On the Net: The study is available at https://www.thejusticeproject.org