Nevada Governor, Senate Leaders Block Death-Penalty Abolition Bill That Passed State Assembly

A bill to abol­ish Nevada​’s death penal­ty died with­out a vote in the state sen­ate after Governor Steve Sisolak (pic­tured) declared on May 13, 2021 that ​“there is no path for­ward” to ban the prac­tice. Shortly there­after, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, one of two Las Vegas pros­e­cu­tors to hold lead­er­ship posi­tions in the leg­is­la­ture, said that leg­is­la­tors had failed to reach a con­sen­sus on pos­si­ble amend­ments to the bill, end­ing efforts to move any reforms for­ward before the leg­isla­tive dead­line for bills to advance out of committee.

The death-penal­ty repeal bill, which would have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and con­vert­ed the sen­tences of the 70 pris­on­ers on Nevada’s death row to life with­out parole, passed the Democratic-con­trolled Assembly on April 13, 2021 on a 26 – 16 par­ty-line vote. Although the pro­po­nents of death-penal­ty repeal believed they had suf­fi­cient votes for pas­sage in the Democratic-con­trolled Senate, they could not get a hear­ing or a vote on the bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee. That com­mit­tee is chaired by Senator Melanie Scheible, the oth­er Las Vegas prosecutor. 

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, who runs the office in which the two sen­a­tors work when the leg­is­la­ture is not in ses­sion, was the lead wit­ness against the bill in the Assembly. In an action whose tim­ing Wolfson said was coin­ci­den­tal, Clark County pros­e­cu­tors filed plead­ings short­ly after the Assembly’s vote attempt­ing to set an exe­cu­tion date for Nevada death-row pris­on­er Zane Floyd. It would be the state’s first exe­cu­tion in 15 years. 

ACLU of Nevada exec­u­tive direc­tor Athar Haseebullah blast­ed Gov. Sisolak and Senate Democratic lead­ers after the bill’s fail­ure. ​“The governor’s state­ment that ​‘there is no path for­ward’ is a major flip-flop on an issue that is lit­er­al­ly a mat­ter of life and death,” Haseebullah said. ​“Party lead­ers in the Senate and Governor’s office have shown that their com­mit­ment to mean­ing­ful reform is noth­ing but lip ser­vice. The peo­ple of Nevada are ready to end the death penal­ty. They deserve to have a voice, and they deserve true lead­er­ship in the Legislature rather than just polit­i­cal crony­ism. This is an embarrassment.”

Governor Sisolak has pre­vi­ous­ly expressed sup­port for lim­it­ing the use of the death penal­ty but has stopped short of advo­cat­ing for full abo­li­tion. In his state­ment, he said, ​“I’ve been clear on my posi­tion that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment should be sought and used less often, but I believe there are severe sit­u­a­tions that warrant it.” 

Legislative sup­port­ers of abo­li­tion expressed dis­ap­point­ment after the announce­ments from the gov­er­nor and Senate lead­ers but placed the defeat in con­text. Before 2021, no bill to repeal Nevada’s death penal­ty had ever got­ten out of com­mit­tee in either house of the leg­is­la­ture. ​“While we are dis­ap­point­ed that we could not get across the fin­ish line this ses­sion on AB395,” Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson said, ​“we have to accept that there is a process and many of our pri­or­i­ties don’t ulti­mate­ly come to fruition. We will con­tin­ue work­ing on poli­cies we believe are sound and con­tin­ue work­ing with our col­leagues on mean­ing­ful reform to the inequities that exist in our crim­i­nal justice system.”

The Nevada Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NVCADP), which had orga­nized sup­port for the bill from groups includ­ing the ACLU of Nevada, the Nevada Democratic Party, the Nevada Catholic Conference, Faith Organizing Alliance, Faith in Action and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, crit­i­cized the deci­sion to kill the bill as ​“unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic.” In a state­ment, the orga­ni­za­tion decried the inequities of the death penalty system. 

“Sen. Cannizzaro and Governor Sisolak have demon­strat­ed a lack of con­cern about the unfair and racial­ly biased appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in Nevada,” Nancy Hart, President of the Coalition, said. ​“There are clear and pro­found bias­es inher­ent in the death penal­ty sys­tem, includ­ing racial bias­es, bias­es against the indi­gent and the men­tal­ly ill, and the fact that it has his­tor­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed those least equipped to defend them­selves in court. The impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty is a lengthy, cost­ly process that does not serve the well-being of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, putting them through decades of re-traumatization.” 

NVCADP Community Organizer Branden Cunningham accused Senate lead­ers and the gov­er­nor of ​“clear dis­re­gard for the com­mu­ni­ties most impact­ed by our deeply flawed death penal­ty sys­tem. Silencing those voic­es by pre­vent­ing a hear­ing on the bill,” he said, ​“shows their pri­or­i­ties are not aligned with the peo­ple of Nevada.”