This year, Wolfson faces a primary challenger who vows to help end capital punishment in the state. Ozzie Fumo, a criminal defense attorney and former Nevada State Assembly member who introduced legislation to abolish the death penalty in 2019, is Wolfson’s only challenger so far in the June Democratic primary for DA in Clark County. 

Fumo told Bolts he would never seek death sentences if elected. He also said he will continue to push for lawmakers to abolish capital punishment in Nevada, citing its disproportionate use against people of color and high fiscal impact. 

“In my experience, the darker your skin, the more likely a person is to receive the death penalty,” Fumo said. “I would not seek the death penalty as district attorney of Clark County.”

This is the first time Fumo has taken this stance on how he would use his discretion as DA. In the past, candidates who say they personally oppose the death penalty have often stopped short of saying they would rule out its use within their office so long as capital punishment remains legal.

If Clark County were to shut the door to the death penalty, it would mark a major shift in the scope of capital punishment in the United States. According to data compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center, only three counties elsewhere in the nation have sentenced more people to death over the last decade.

The Clark County DA race is a window into the tensions at the heart of the modern death penalty in the United States. Executions and new death sentences continued a years-long downward trend in 2021, as even some conservative law enforcement officials, such as Utah County Attorney David Leavitt, turned away from its use. Yet at the same time, the practice has become more extreme and entrenched where it remains in use. 

In 2021, Arizona refurbished its out-of-use gas chamber for potential use in future executions, while South Carolina authorized use of the electric chair as an execution method. Oklahoma has vowed to continue lethal injections even after last October’s execution of John Marion Grant led to him vomiting and convulsing while strapped to the gurney. Grant’s lethal injection was Oklahoma’s first since 2015, when other botched executions triggered a years-long pause. 

Nevada almost swung in the other direction, in part due to legislation that Fumo pushed to abolish the death penalty while he was in the legislature. But those legislative efforts fell short, and Wolfson was key to preserving the death penalty in Nevada statutes. With Clark County comprising over 70 percent of Nevada’s population, he is one of the state’s most influential voices on criminal justice policy, repeatedly using his bully pulpit to oppose repeal. Last year, Wolfson testified against a death-penalty abolition bill, while two staff prosecutors who work for his office and also serve as state Senators—Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro and Senator Melanie Scheible—helped block the bill from inside the legislature. Having employees of the DA’s office in legislative leadership dims the prospects of criminal justice reform legislation beyond the death penalty, said criminal defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen.

“Nicole Cannizzaro has told me, ‘I am a prosecutor; I’m not going to vote for that,’” Rasmussen said of reform bills she has lobbied for at the legislature, including the bill to end the death penalty. “It feels like the criminal justice reform bills that she doesn’t want to have a hearing on don’t get a hearing.” Wolfson, Scheible and Cannizzaro did not respond to requests for comment.

Usual conventions of how prosecutors approach the death penalty may be changing, though. In 2018, when Wolfson was last up for election, he received a primary challenge from criminal defense attorney Robert Langford, who also sought to make an issue of the incumbent’s use of the death penalty. But Langford only said he would scale back its use, rather than ending it entirely. Since that time, it has become more common for prosecutorial candidates to say they would outright rule out seeking death sentences, as Fumo is now doing.

But Fumo did not lay out a plan to prevent staff prosecutors in his office from tanking the prospects of repeal in the legislature. The lawyers of a man currently on death row in Nevada are alleging in a lawsuit that Cannizzaro and Scheible violated conflict-of-interest rules during the debate over abolition last year because their role as lawmakers clashed with their jobs as deputy DAs. “If the Supreme Court says they can, I’m not going to prevent anybody from doing something they want to do,” Fumo said in response. He also said he would be willing to return to the state capitol to testify in favor of a bill abolishing the death penalty. 

Nevada’s application of the death penalty is particularly prone to error. Between 2014 and 2017, for instance, the Nevada Supreme Court reversed three death penalty convictions and ordered new trials after finding racial discrimination in the jury selection process.

There are also racial disparities in how prosecutors apply the death penalty. According to numbers compiled by public defender Scott Coffee, defendants were Black in over 50 percent of cases where Wolfson signaled his intent to seek death sentences. Clark County’s population, by comparison, is 13 percent Black. 

Nevada’s death penalty is also expensive to pursue relative even to life imprisonment, as is the case in other states where the question has been studied. A 2014 study commissioned by the Nevada legislature found that death penalty cases can cost up to $500,000 more than an identical case where a death sentence is not pursued. These costs mainly come from the stringent requirements surrounding capital cases, which obligate the defense to pursue extensive background investigation, mitigation efforts, and appeals. 

Most defendants facing the death penalty are represented by public defenders, meaning the costs are borne by Clark County’s taxpayers. For a county that seeks multiple death sentences a year, these costs add up. “The county will see in the first four years how much money we will save based on my decision not to file the death penalty,” Fumo said.

Fumo says he would still pursue harsh punishments and that he would seek sentences up to and including life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. But taking the death penalty off the table could still change the balance of power between the prosecution and the defense. Even the threat of a death sentence is often enough to make defendants plead guilty in exchange for the DA not seeking capital punishment, according to Coffee, who noted that 83 of the roughly 120 death penalty cases resolved during Wolfson’s time in office resulted in pleas without going to trial.

“It’s a crowbar to drive negotiations,” Coffee added.

While Wolfson defeated Langford with 56 percent of the vote in the 2018 primary, the political ground in Clark County may have shifted in favor of criminal justice reform since then. In 2020, seven public defenders, all of them women, won elections to judgeships in Clark County, despite significant fundraising disadvantages, even as Fumo lost a statewide bid for a Supreme Court seat. (In the wake of the public defenders’ wins, Wolfson called for Nevada to replace judicial elections with an appointment system.)

Though Clark County hands down a large number of death sentences, executions in Nevada haven’t occurred since 2006. That could soon change, however, with Wolfson seeking to proceed with the execution of Zane Floyd, who in 2000 was convicted on four counts of murder, as well as sexual assault and other charges, and sentenced to death. The state’s supply of drugs that it plans to use in a lethal injection will expire at the end of February and may be difficult to replace—many pharmaceutical companies block prisons from purchasing drugs for use in executions. 

Floyd’s lawyers have continued to appeal his death sentence, which Wolfson’s deputies have fought to uphold. Fumo said he believes that Floyd “deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole,” but would not seek to execute him. 

“They can’t even get the medicine they need to do it correctly. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies are against it and refuse to sell those drugs to the state of Nevada,” Fumo said. “Look at all the wasted time and energy of the deputy district attorneys. They could be spending that time and effort into expanding programs or trying cases.”

It is unknown when Floyd’s execution would be scheduled if his appeals fail, and whether it would occur before a new DA came into office, and advocates say they are looking at many avenues. “We hope that the board of pardons, and the governor, and the attorney general, will hear Zane Floyd’s plea for clemency,” said Mark Bettencourt, project director of the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

The post DA Candidate Vows to End Death Sentences In Las Vegas, a Capital Punishment Stronghold appeared first on Bolts.

When Christy Craig started working at the public defender’s office in Clark County, Nevada, in 1998, she didn’t plan to ever run for judge. “I knew that was my gig,” Craig said. “I couldn’t have been happier to be there.” Since then, Craig has represented thousands of defendants and scored landmark wins in suits against the State on issues of correctional mental health and cash bail. 

But soon Craig will be leaving the public defender’s office to become a judge on the Eighth Judicial District Court, the criminal and civil court of Clark County, which includes the Las Vegas metro area. 

It was a colleague who gave her the idea to seek election last January. “I was sitting in my office and I was complaining about the bench,” Craig said. Suddenly Belinda Harris, a public defender who had already announced her candidacy for a judgeship, shouted from her office: “Well, shut up and run!” 

So Craig entered the race and won on Nov. 3—alongside Harris and five other public defenders.

These seven public defenders, all women, many women of color, are now set to become judges in January. Harris is heading to the North Las Vegas Justice Court; the others were elected to the Eighth Judicial District Court, despite many being significantly outraised by their opponents. 

The results will alter Clark County’s political landscape, strengthening the hand of those who want to change practices that fuel mass incarceration. Several of the public defenders described their candidacies as an effort to “balance” the courts, as judgeships in Clark County have historically been dominated by former prosecutors, as is often the case nationwide. 

Organizers interested in criminal justice reform pushed similar efforts to “flip the bench” this year in other parts of the country, including New Orleans and Hamilton County (Cincinnati), Ohio, where public defenders and others with experience representing marginalized people successfully sought judicial seats.

“I hope that it means that we are able to make the system more fair,” said public defender and judge-elect Erika Ballou, who was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders. “I understand that a lot of times people who are in the system have done something wrong, but that shouldn’t ruin their life. It shouldn’t define everything.”

Judges have immense power over defendants’ lives and over the direction of the criminal legal system as a whole. From setting bail amounts to meting out sentences, judges make the choices that either maintain the status quo or chart alternatives to locking people up.

But judges depend on collaboration with prosecutors, and the public defenders are already facing backlash before even taking the bench. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, who in the past has resisted reform proposals to end cash bail and the death penalty, called for Nevada to move to replace judicial elections with appointments in late November. Wolfson raised the issue in direct response to the public defenders winning judicial elections. 

Still, local advocates hope that the elections will be part of a growing momentum for criminal justice reform that has been building in Nevada.

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Over the last two years, Nevada has seen numerous changes to its criminal legal system. In 2019, the state legislature passed laws shortening sentences for many nonviolent offenses, increasing access to diversion programs, re-enfranchising formerly incarcerated individuals, providing monetary compensation for the wrongly incarcerated, and banning private prisons. In September 2019, Craig was part of a team that brought Valdez-Jimenez v. Eighth Judicial District Court before the Nevada Supreme Court. The court’s decision in April of this year flipped cash bail on its head, placing the burden on prosecutors to prove that a defendant should be held on bail, rather than asking defendants to prove that they should be released. 

The Valdez-Jimenez ruling “basically says that the standard way of doing cash bail in Nevada for decades is blatantly unconstitutional,” said Alec Karakatsanis, executive director of Civil Rights Corps, which worked with the public defender’s office on the case. “If the state wants to jail someone prior to trial because it believes that the person poses some kind of a danger, they actually have to put on evidence in a rigorous legal proceeding.”

Yet the discretion of individual judges remains extremely important. “Even under those standards, judges can just say, ‘I’m looking at the evidence and I find that the person is a danger to the community,’ and they can just repeat those words without genuinely exercising real thought,” Karakatsanis added.

Newly elected judge Belinda Harris said she plans to treat the Valdez-Jimenez standards seriously, though she added she would set bail if she deemed it absolutely necessary. “I don’t think that people’s freedoms should be tied to whether they can make bail or not,” Harris said. 

Harris was elected judge of the Justice Court of North Las Vegas, where the initial stages of a criminal proceeding take place, including the decision on whether to set bail in the vast majority of criminal cases. That decision will be fully within Harris’s discretion.

Harris was also the first Black judge elected without first being appointed in North Las Vegas, which has a large Black population compared to the rest of Clark County. “I think there’s something to be said that most of the clients that are being serviced look like me,” Harris said. “We’re diversifying the bench.” Most of the public defenders recently elected as judges—Harris, Ballou, Monica Trujillo, Jasmin Lilly-Spells, and Dee Butler—are women of color, a historically underrepresented group on the Nevada bench.

Ballou said that she hopes the newly elected judges will be able to move the Clark County justice system toward a rehabilitative model of criminal justice. That could entail finding alternatives to incarceration.

“Maybe we’ll be able to get people the help they need rather than sending them to prison, which just warehouses them, and doesn’t help them in any way to come out and not do this again,” she said. “Do they need drug help? Is it unresolved trauma? Can we give people some mental health counseling? Can we do something so that this cycle does not continue? That’s what I hope.”

Scott Coffee, a public defender, emphasized that beyond specific policy changes, the new judges’ experience as public defenders could translate into more compassion in court proceedings. “Because a lot of these new candidates have dealt with people accused of crimes one on one, they know they’re human beings,” he said. 

“They understand the difficulties,” Coffee added. “It’s easy for me to get to the courthouse, but if you’re homeless, living eight miles from the courthouse, making an 8 o’clock court appearance isn’t always the easiest thing to do.” 

“The biggest change that you’ll see come to the bench is that there’s going to be more empathy for the struggles that people face, particularly when they’re poor,” Coffee said.

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Without big fundraising hauls, the candidates relied on grassroots organizing to educate and turn out voters. Organizations working in communities affected by poverty and the criminal legal system played a significant role in pushing the public defenders to victory. 

Most of the candidates were outraised by their opponents several times over. Special Public Defender Monica Trujillo was victorious despite raising only $77,000 to her opponent’s more than $400,000, including $75,000 of his own money, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Craig was outraised by more than a factor of 25, raising only $14,000 to her opponent’s $360,000. Ballou raised no money at all. One of the candidates did receive significant outside help; Carli Kierny was supported by radio ads paid for by a PAC largely funded by megadonors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, which mostly supported conservative-leaning candidates.

The candidates attributed their victories in the face of such fundraising gaps to their longtime presence in the communities they serve. “I’ve been doing things in the community for the 17 years that I’ve lived here,” Ballou said, noting her work with organizations including community theaters and Planned Parenthood. “I know a lot of people, people know who I am.”

Harris also said that her roots and longtime presence in North Las Vegas were helpful. “It was really a grassroots, community effort,” she said of her campaign. “I’m down on the ground, you know? I’m at the cookout, I’m at the neighborhood barbecue.”

Harris said she received support from her clients at the public defender’s office. “There would be times that I would meet a new client, and they’d say ‘You’re running for judge, my whole family is gonna vote for you!’” 

The candidates also benefited from the work of local grassroots organizations such as Mi Familia Vota Nevada and the anti-incarceration network Mass Liberation Nevada. MLN mobilized dozens of volunteers for phone banks and canvasses that reached thousands of voters, held video forums to educate voters and introduce them to the judicial candidates, and organized with incarcerated individuals to get them to encourage family members to vote. 

Leslie Turner, an MLN organizer and formerly incarcerated person, said the group’s efforts were particularly important because of the effect that the criminal legal system has on the group’s core constituency. 

“We have a higher chance of actually being in court in front of some of these judges, so it’s important that we’re putting people on the bench that understand our perspective, understand why we’re saying Black Lives Matter … and all of the factors that come into play when somebody might end up in the courtroom,” Turner said.

Much of MLN’s organizing centered on reaching out to formerly incarcerated people. In 2019, Nevada adopted a law restoring the voting rights of tens of thousands of people with felony convictions; all citizens who are not in prison can now vote. 

“That garnered a whole new base of voters,” said Jagada Chambers, an organizing fellow with MLN who is formerly incarcerated.

Many formerly incarcerated people were initially unaware that they had become able to vote, making grassroots outreach—some of which stalled under the COVID-19 pandemic—essential. 

“I literally had to pull out the bill, the paperwork, and go over it, and be like ‘You actually can vote, for real,’” Turner said. “It was really empowering.”

The fact that many of the candidates were participants or legal observers at Black Lives Matter protests over the summer was helpful in mobilizing volunteers. A frequent recruitment pitch was that “these are the same lawyers that are out in the streets supporting us and this movement, so we need to support them,” Turner said. 

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Since the Nov. 3 elections, DA Wolfson has taken issue with the incoming wave of judges.

“In past elections, there was a greater correlation between how much effort a candidate put into the campaign and the result—a more direct relationship between efforts and results of fundraising and who won,” Wolfson said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He also raised doubts about some of the winning candidates’ qualifications.

Some public defenders criticized Wolfson’s comments. “That guy lives in a totally different world than 90 percent of our community,” said public defender John Piro. “It’s a crowd that’s not taking time to recognize that there’s systemic issues here with both poverty and racism that have affected our system.”

Wolfson’s office did not respond to multiple requests for further comment.

Fifteen political organizations also signed on to a statement from Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice (NACJ) denouncing Wolfson’s comments, including the Clark County Democratic Party, the Las Vegas NAACP, Mi Familia Vota Nevada, and the Las Vegas Democratic Socialists of America. The letter claimed that Wolfson’s commentary “ignores the greater value in a democracy of earned community reputations over access to finances,” and also, “denies the extensive professional qualifications of our newly elected judges.”

NACJ president Sarah Hawkins told The Appeal: Political Report that Wolfson’s remarks on fundraising “devalue members of historically marginalized communities, who cannot contribute financially to campaigns, who only have their votes.” 

“He didn’t complain [about electing judges] when prosecutors with law enforcement endorsements repeatedly ascended the bench over the past decade,” Hawkins added.

But Harris was unperturbed by Wolfson’s comments. “I just don’t pay him any mind, because as a judge, I’m just gonna look at what’s before me, and not his thoughts or opinions,” Harris said. “I ran my race. I had some DA colleagues … tell me I was gonna lose, but here I am.”

The post How Public Defenders Rocked Las Vegas Judge Elections appeared first on Bolts.