By Jace Radke <jace@​lasvegassun.​com>
LAS VEGAS SUN

June 30, 2004

A man who spent 14 years on Nevada’s death row for a crime he said he did­n’t com­mit set­tled a fed­er­al law­suit against Clark County for $5 mil­lion, end­ing a claim that alleged he was not ade­quate­ly rep­re­sent­ed by the Clark County pub­lic defender’s office.

Represented by an attor­ney who had passed the state bar only months before, Roberto Miranda was con­vict­ed of killing a man and sen­tenced to death in 1982. On appeal, a judge ordered a new tri­al because of errors in his defense, and Miranda was released in September 1996 after pros­e­cu­tors decid­ed not to pur­sue the case.

Miranda claimed his attor­ney failed to ade­quate­ly defend him and said he did­n’t find a wit­ness who could have cleared him of the crime.

JoNell Thomas, one of Miranda’s attor­neys, said she hopes this case brings more atten­tion to the needs of the pub­lic defend­er’s office, espe­cial­ly when it comes to the defense of those fac­ing the death penalty.

“This sends a clear mes­sage to the Clark County com­mis­sion­ers about how impor­tant it is to allo­cate mon­ey to the pub­lic defend­er’s office,” Thomas said of the set­tle­ment that was fol­lowed by U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks’ dis­missal of the case. ​“If you don’t spend the resources on the front end to pro­vide expe­ri­enced attor­neys, inves­ti­ga­tors and researchers you will pay on the back end, and you’ll pay a lot more.”

His 1998 fed­er­al law­suit against the coun­ty named for­mer Public Defender Morgan Harris, Deputy Public Defender Thomas Rigsby and two for­mer Metro Police homicide detectives.

The case was ini­tial­ly thrown out by a fed­er­al judge and a pan­el of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before anoth­er appel­late pan­el allowed Miranda to sue the coun­ty and Harris.

The set­tle­ment will be paid by Compass Insurance, the suc­ces­sor to the com­pa­ny that insured the coun­ty dur­ing Miranda’s tri­al in 1982, said Walt Cannon, who rep­re­sent­ed the for­mer Metro detec­tives in the case.

Mary Miller, the coun­ty’s attor­ney, said that the coun­ty paid its insur­ance pre­mi­ums in 1982 and that the set­tle­ment will not cost coun­ty tax­pay­ers any mon­ey. The coun­ty is now self-insured, Miller said.

An undis­closed amount of attor­ney fees will be paid by Miranda from the set­tle­ment mon­ey, Thomas said.

Miranda, who was con­vict­ed of the stab­bing death of Manuel Rodriguez Torres, insist­ed that a key pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness had a rea­son to frame him, but Rigsby failed to locate wit­ness­es that would help prove his case.

Miranda’s appel­late attor­ney locat­ed the wit­ness­es and con­vinced a judge to grant him a new trial.

According to the law­suit, the pub­lic defend­er’s office ​“threw in the tow­el while Miranda sped toward his execution.”

Over the last year the coun­ty has added 10 new posi­tions to the pub­lic defend­er’s office to bring the num­ber of attor­neys in the office to 80, but unless more is done oth­ers will fall through the cracks like Miranda did, said Gary Peck, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

“I com­mend the coun­ty for the steps they have tak­en, but not enough has been done,” Peck said. ​“There is at least one depart­ment in the pub­lic defend­er’s office where attor­neys are car­ry­ing case­loads of 500 or more cas­es mak­ing it impos­si­ble for them to pro­vide any meaningful representation.

“As long as this prob­lem exists the coun­ty is going to be exposed to more law­suits, set­tle­ments and judgments.”

Clark County Public Defender Phil Kohn said that it’s no secret that his office is under­staffed and under­fund­ed, with his attor­neys car­ry­ing about 350 cas­es apiece every year.

“We have got some new bod­ies, but the main point is that the coun­ty has rec­og­nized the prob­lem and made us and social ser­vices the pri­or­i­ty,” said Kohn, who added that he would like to see that num­ber drop to about 250 a year.

Kohn said he rec­og­nizes that the juve­nile divi­sion is still buried under about 500 case per year per attor­ney, but added that the divi­sion has grown from two attor­neys to 10 over the past two years.

Kohn said the office has made some oth­er changes includ­ing estab­lish­ing mur­der teams that draw on the office’s most expe­ri­enced attor­neys for death penalty cases.

“We don’t put rook­ies on death penal­ty cas­es,” Kohn said. ​“The mur­der teams insure that the hor­ror that Roberto Miranda lived through won’t ever happen again.”

Another change is that there are now team chiefs who don’t have case­loads and can bet­ter super­vise the office’s attor­neys, Kohn said.

A 2003 report com­mis­sioned by the pub­lic defend­er’s office and pre­pared by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, showed glar­ing prob­lems with the grow­ing case­loads han­dled by Clark County public defenders.

For exam­ple:

  • The report notes that from 1983 to 2001 the num­ber of new juve­nile case assign­ments grew by near­ly 400 per­cent, from 576 to 2,867, with­out one new attor­ney being added.
  • The office should have a new appel­late unit meet­ing the association’s standards.
  • The pub­lic defend­er’s office needs new per­son­nel to cre­ate and enforce clear per­for­mance guide­lines and expec­ta­tions and provide training.

Peck echoed Thomas’ com­ments that the set­tle­ment should be a mes­sage to the county commission.

“During the last bud­get cycle a num­ber of polit­i­cal and pol­i­cy deci­sions were made,” Peck said. ​“Money was poured into dif­fer­ent agen­cies and some steps were tak­en in the pub­lic defend­er’s office, but if more isn’t done we’re going to con­tin­ue to see the coun­ty gam­bling with tax payer money.”