Las Vegas Prosecutor Who Obtained Wrongful Capital Conviction Engaged in Pattern of Misconduct

A Las Vegas, Nevada, judge — who, as a pros­e­cu­tor, com­mit­ted mis­con­duct in sev­er­al death-penal­ty tri­als — now faces judi­cial mis­con­duct charges aris­ing out of anoth­er mur­der case in which a defen­dant he pros­e­cut­ed has been grant­ed a hear­ing to prove her innocence. 

The Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline has charged Bill Kephart (pic­tured) with sev­er­al vio­la­tions of the judi­cial code of con­duct for giv­ing a media inter­view about his con­tro­ver­sial 2002 pros­e­cu­tion of Kirstin Lobato that the Commission alleges ​“could affect the out­come or impair the fair­ness of Miss Lobato’s case.” Kephart denies the charges. 

Kephart pre­vi­ous­ly with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence from defen­dant Fred Steese in a 1994 cap­i­tal tri­al and went on to com­mit mis­con­duct in at least five oth­er cas­es before being elect­ed to serve as a judge on the Eighth Judicial District Court of Nevada in 2014. A pair of arti­cles co-pub­lished by ProPublica and Vanity Fair details the sto­ry of Steese’s wrong­ful pros­e­cu­tion and what it calls Kephart’s ​“long his­to­ry of prosecutorial misconduct.” 

In 1994, Kephart led the high-pro­file pros­e­cu­tion of Steese for the mur­der of a high­ly cel­e­brat­ed cir­cus per­former, Gerald Soules. After a five-hour inter­ro­ga­tion by Las Vegas police and more than 35 hours with­out sleep, Steese signed a con­fes­sion to Soules’ mur­der, despite hav­ing been in Idaho when the mur­der occurred. Steese pre­sent­ed 14 ali­bi wit­ness­es, but Kephart argued to the jury — with no sup­port­ing evi­dence — that Steese’s broth­er had posed as him in Idaho while Steese com­mit­ted the mur­der in Nevada. Kephart also pre­sent­ed mis­lead­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tes­ti­mo­ny and base­less­ly accused the defense of doctoring evidence. 

After Steese was con­vict­ed, pros­e­cu­tors dropped the death penal­ty and Steese was sen­tenced to life. Steese’s lawyer sub­se­quent­ly learned that pros­e­cu­tors had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly with­held phone records show­ing Steese was in fact in Idaho at the time of the murder. 

Nearly 20 years lat­er, a judge hand­ed down an Order Regarding Actual Innocence in Steese’s case, and Steese was released in 2013. By then, Kephart had been cit­ed for mis­con­duct in five oth­er cas­es, includ­ing a 1997 cap­i­tal mur­der tri­al in which he made ​“delib­er­ate” and ​“improp­er com­ments” and a 2008 death penal­ty tri­al in which the mis­con­duct was char­ac­ter­ized as ​“sig­nif­i­cant.” Despite the rep­ri­mands, he was elect­ed as a jus­tice of the peace in 2010 and became a District Court judge in 2014.