"Police officers' versions of events must be challenged. Absent that, the process is little more than a public dog-and-pony show."
— Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, 2006
If, as they say, the wheels of justice grind slowly, it could be argued that they don't grind at all during the coroner's inquest process. Set up more than 30 years ago as a non-adversarial way to examine officer-involved fatalities—and to, at least tangentially, show the public that cops aren't above reproach—the coroner's inquest has succeeded in generating widespread skepticism about its impartiality. Namely, that it is pro-cop and values the appearance of justice over actual justice.
In its history, only one officer has been found criminally liable, and he was later absolved by a jury. This year, inquests have cleared 17 officers of criminal misconduct. And next week, the Clark County Commission is asking you to weigh in on decades-old system that you probably know little about—other than that cops who've shot suspects in the back or shocked them with Tasers have gotten off scot-free. (Hearings are set for Wednesday, January 10, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. and Thursday, January 11, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the first-floor County Commission chambers at the County Government Center, 500 S. Grand Central Parkway.)
You're expected, in two 90-minute sessions, to offer constructive suggestions that a working group of officials closely tied to the process—Metro, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association (the police union), Clark County government, the county District Attorney's office, the state Attorney General's office, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—spent months hashing out. Their recommendations are thus:
• Replace hearing masters, who oversee the proceedings, with justices of the peace (who are elected and accountable to the public).
• Replace representatives of the Clark County District Attorney's Office, currently the chief questioners during inquests, with lawyers from the state Attorney General's office (to help remove the appearance of partiality).
• Allow relatives of shooting victims, who are currently allowed to submit questions in writing, to ask questions in open court (which, ironically, might create more of an adversarial, trial-like atmosphere).
The process hit a snag recently—disrupting what participant Gerald Gardner, chief deputy district attorney for the AG's office, says were amicable meetings—with the PPA and ACLU arguing about questioning in an inquest. The ACLU wants questions asked in court, in front of the jury. Fearing the jury might be tainted by questions that aren't germane to the inquest, the PPA wants the judge to decide what's asked in court.
And now you're supposed to make sense of all this. Here's what you need to know before you offer your two cents:
The inquest is a non-adversarial proceeding. Don't go there expecting cops to get convicted.
If you or I shoot and kill someone, to trial we go. If an officer is found criminally liable via the inquest, the District Attorney determines whether charges are filed. If the DA presses charges, then a criminal trial kicks in. If the DA doesn't press charges then, at best, families of the deceased can hope for a civil judgment.
"People are trying to turn the coroner's inquest process into a criminal prosecution hearing," says assistant county manager Elizabeth Quillin. "It's not and never has been."
Shouldn't the inquest be adversarial? After all, a life has either been lost or severely impacted.
Says Quillin: "That's not how the ordinance is written."
County Spokesman Erik Pappa says: "Cops have a Fifth Amendment rights not to incriminate themselves."
If officers clam up and don't say anything, the thinking goes, you're no closer to the truth than when you started.
A government official privy to coroner's inquests offers: "With questions from a grieving family member, you might have lots of questions from one individual and there might be no legal basis for asking the questions. Families may have retained counsel and intend on pursuing a civil-rights lawsuit against cops for wrongful death. They're using the inquest as a fact-finding mission for their civil litigation. From the officers' standpoint, the coroner's inquest is not part of fact-finding for civil lawsuits; thus many of them are hesitant to participate."
Conversely, the ACLU is concerned with one person—say, a prosecutor—asking all the questions. That person can control the tone of the entire inquest.
Something needs to be done about the way obvious discrepancies go unresolved or unanswered, as they often do now.
For example, during inquest testimony in the case of handcuffed 17-year-old murder suspect Swuave Lopez—who was fatally shot in the back while fleeing—two cops gave competing versions of where shots were fired; one said they were fired from nearly 30 feet away, another said a few yards away.
Again, Quillin notes, that would require a change in the ordinance. Or, at least a recommendation all sides can compromise on. Many jurisdictions, including Washoe County, have closed inquests, Quillin says—there's no public vetting, so the media can't see what's going on. With this process, she says, at least everything's transparent.
So maybe one of the public's recommendations should be to explore amending to the ordinance to institute trial-like procedures.
Dean Ishman, president of the Las Vegas NAACP and a former New York cop, says fully reforming the inquest might require stepping outside the group's purview and probing deeper-rooted issues, like revisiting state use-of-force laws and recalibrating the mindsets of cops.
Though it's not currently on the table, someone should question how to include remnants of the courtroom trials people are familiar with—those with discovery, cross-examinations and objections and the like—without abridging officers' rights.
If they are approved as-is, County Commissioner Rory Reid says the commission could vote on the working group's recommendations next month. They could be implemented shortly thereafter. If the public pushes for stronger reforms, he concedes, "it could take longer," or could start all over again.
Quillin says it's way too early to determine if they're on the right track to creating a better coroner's inquest system.
"I think we're heading down the road to a much improved process," she says. "We've come a long, long way. [Whatever recommendations are ultimately approved], one side or the other is not going to be happy, but that's just the way it is."