Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Settlement ends ex-inmate's saga

County insurance to pay Miranda, who spent years on state's death row

Roberto Miranda gives an interview after his release in 1996 from death row.

Former death row inmate Roberto Miranda has settled his civil rights lawsuit against the Clark County public defender's office for $5 million, ending the Cuban immigrant's 23-year entanglement with America's justice system.

"We're really excited about it, excited for him and excited that it's over," said JoNell Thomas, one of Miranda's attorneys. "He's going to be able to move on with his life now and put this behind him."

Miranda, who spent more than 14 years on Nevada's death row, filed a federal lawsuit in 1998 that accused the public defender's office of contributing to his wrongful conviction in a murder case.

Thomas said the settlement, which is covered by an insurance policy, will give Miranda "some financial security for his future."

"It's also a sad fact that Roberto Miranda will never get back 14 years of his life, and no amount of money is going to change that," the attorney said.

Thomas declined to reveal what percentage of the settlement will go to Miranda's lawyers.

A Clark County jury sentenced Miranda to death in 1982 after finding him guilty of first-degree murder and other charges that stemmed from the August 1981 stabbing death of Manuel Rodriguez Torres.

Miranda was released from prison in September 1996. During an interview at his Las Vegas apartment several months later, he discussed the possibility of filing a lawsuit to seek compensation for his time behind bars.

"Even if they pay me $1 billion for every year I spent in prison, they're not going to pay me or make the pain, the memory and everything that happened to me in 14 years go away," he said. "That stays with me until I die."

Thomas said Miranda, who turned 61 earlier this month, no longer wants his whereabouts to be known.

"He would like to maintain his privacy, and I certainly respect that," she said.

Miranda's lawsuit said the public defender's office refused to investigate and defend his case adequately. The lawsuit alleged Las Vegas police failed to preserve and disclose critical information that would have cleared him.

The 52-page complaint named Clark County, then-Clark County Public Defender Morgan Harris, Deputy Public Defender Thomas Rigsby, and former Las Vegas police homicide detectives Robert Leonard and Michael Maddock as defendants. Rigsby was dismissed from the case before the settlement.

Las Vegas attorney James Pico and Ohio attorney Neil Freund, who represent the county, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Thomas Beatty, the attorney who represents Harris, called the settlement an "economic decision."

"We always felt we had valid defenses," he said. "We're just pleased that it's over with at this point."

Beatty said the events that led to the lawsuit happened at a time when the county was insured, and taxpayers are not footing the bill for the settlement.

Most of Miranda's lawsuit focused on Rigsby's performance as his trial lawyer.

According to the complaint, Rigsby passed the Nevada Bar exam in October 1980 and began working as a deputy public defender in February 1981.

The lawsuit alleged Rigsby had no experience handling murder cases before being assigned to represent Miranda. It claimed the public defender's office had adopted policies dictating that it would minimally investigate and defend cases against minorities, those who did not belong to the Mormon church and those who failed to perform well on "unreliable" polygraph tests administered by the office.

"Unfortunately for Miranda -- a black, non-Mormon who allegedly did not do well on a polygraph examination -- these policies assured his conviction," the complaint alleged.

Harris, a member of the Mormon church, retired from the county in October 2001. Beatty said Harris is doing charitable work overseas.

Phil Kohn, who became the county's public defender in April, described Rigsby as a good lawyer.

"He just simply got that case way too early in his career, and he wasn't ready for it." Kohn said.

"What went wrong in Miranda will never happen again," Kohn said. "Do we still have caseloads that are too high? Of course we do."

Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said the county has taken some steps to alleviate problems in the public defender's office, "but there is a long way to go."

"I hope the amount of the settlement sends a powerful message to the county that it needs immediately to fix the most glaring problems in that public defender's office because failing to do so exposes the county to more lawsuits like Roberto Miranda's and more big-ticket settlements or judgments that could cost the taxpayers millions of dollars," Peck said.

Thomas praised Las Vegas attorney Laura FitzSimmons for the work she did to overturn Miranda's conviction and secure his release from death row.

"There was a significant possibility of having a far worse outcome," Thomas said.

FitzSimmons, who is vacationing in Hawaii, commented Tuesday by e-mail on the settlement.

"People complain about 'endless appeals' in death penalty cases," she wrote. "I represented Roberto during his last possible chance at justice and was afforded adequate funds from (U.S. District) Judge Lloyd George to do the job correctly. Without the appellate process, Roberto would have been executed."

FitzSimmons was appointed to Miranda's murder case in 1991. In early 1996, she persuaded visiting District Judge Norman Robison of Minden to grant Miranda a new trial, based on claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Another judge dismissed the case after prosecutors declined to proceed.

Miranda maintained all along that a key prosecution witness, Fernando Cabrera, had a motive to frame him. Miranda said he had sexual relations with Cabrera's girlfriend.

FitzSimmons and a private investigator later found that woman and other witnesses whom Rigsby had failed to locate for the trial.

In granting Miranda a new trial in 1996, Robison wrote, "The lack of pretrial investigation and preparation by trial counsel ... cannot be justified."

George dismissed much of the lawsuit in 1999, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated all defendants but Rigsby. The remaining defendants then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to review the decision.

FitzSimmons, who supported Miranda financially for about six months as he struggled to adjust to life as a free man, said during a telephone interview Tuesday that she last spoke with her former client about a year and a half ago. She said he occasionally sends her notes, and he most recently sent her one around the holidays.

FitzSimmons said Miranda continues to live in Las Vegas and has a girlfriend. The attorney said Miranda has been suffering from "significant medical problems" that prevent him from working, and she learned he recently underwent eye surgery.

In her e-mail, FitzSimmons said she has mixed feelings about Miranda's settlement.

"I worry it might overwhelm Roberto," she wrote. "But I also hope that people, including judges and lawyers, are reminded that the decisions they make at the beginning of a death penalty case can have profound financial ramifications in future years. It never saves money in the long run to rush to judgment in these cases."