NV Coalition Against the Death Penalty

Nevada

Nevada’s Death Penalty

History

Nevada’s first of 60 recorded executions occurred in 1863, one year before the territory received statehood. Beginning in 1903, all executions were conducted at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. Hanging was the original execution method, although in 1911 law was changed to allow prisoners to choose a firing squad, and in 1921 Nevada became the first state in the nation to sanction the use of the gas chamber. The state continued to use this method into the late 1970’s, when lethal injection became the approved method.

The Modern Era

In 1972, the United States Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional, finding that it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment (Furman v. Georgia). The Court found that those who were given the death penalty (a large percentage of whom were Black) were a “capriciously selected random handful” of people who had committed murder or rape. In Furman, a majority of the Justices agreed that capital punishment, as then practiced in the U.S., was cruel and unusual because there were no rational standards that determined when it was imposed and when it was not.

In 1976, the Supreme Court reviewed several new state laws and found the death penalty constitutional if certain safeguards were in place (Gregg v. Georgia). The Court established two broad guidelines that state legislatures had to follow in order to craft a constitutional capital sentencing scheme – there must be “aggravating factors” defined in the state’s laws, and the jury must be allowed to take in to account “mitigating circumstances” — the character and record of an individual defendant. In Gregg, the Court also approved a bifurcated procedure, in which the jury first considers the question of guilt without regard to punishment, and then determines whether the punishment should be death or life imprisonment.

Nevada Statistics

  • As of March 2020, Nevada had 74 inmates on death row. 100% of those inmates are indigent and unable to pay for legal representation. Almost 40% are African American, while only 9% of the state population is.
  • Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977, Nevada has executed 12 prisoners. Eleven of those 12 inmates gave up their available appeals (“volunteered” to die). The last execution was conducted in 2006.
  • Two Nevada inmates have been released from Death Row based on innocence: Roberto Miranda was exonerated after 14 years, and Ronnie Milligan’s sentence reduced and parole granted after 20 years.
  • One Death Row prisoner – Thomas Nevius – had his sentence commuted to life without parole when it was determined he was severely intellectually disabled.
  • A 1995 study found 1 in 3 NV death penalty cases have errors warranting retrial or re-sentencing.