Lawyers clash at Strohmeyer hearing

Six days before the Jeremy Strohmeyer murder trial was set to begin, prosecution and defense attorneys sniped and snapped at each other Tuesday as they jockeyed for position on a variety of legal issues.

In doing so, they gave a peek at what is likely to come out when witnesses start taking the stand in Chief District Judge Myron Leavitt's courtroom -- including an expected psychological defense strategy and information about the contents of a controversial computer.

Yet there remains a question whether the trial will actually get under way with jury selection on Monday.

Leavitt rejected defense motions directly aimed at postponing the trial that has attracted national attention, and he also turned away other legal challenges seemingly intended to reach the same end.

But California defense attorney Leslie Abramson said she will be filing appeals to the Nevada Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court in efforts to win last-minute delays of the case, which could result in a death sentence if Strohmeyer is convicted.

At one point, after being warned that she was close to being held in contempt of court for calling Deputy District Attorney Bill Koot a "lunatic," Abramson declared that the defense simply wasn't prepared to go to trial Monday and that she would rather sit in jail on a contempt charge "than be incompetent."

If the emotional posturing wanes and the trial does proceed, the defense is expected to use a mental-deficiency defense.

The defense case apparently is going to contend that Strohmeyer was mentally incapable of forming the intent and premeditation necessary for a jury to convict him of raping and murdering 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson.

There were indications during the flurry of pretrial motions Tuesday that defense attorneys have lined up psychiatrists to give such testimony about the 19-year-old Long Beach, Calif., defendant's mental state during the early morning hours on May 25, 1997, inside a Primm casino.

Strohmeyer is said to have been playfully tossing wet paper towels back and forth with the girl before he followed her into a women's restroom at the Primm Valley hotel-casino, 45 miles southwest of Las Vegas, where she was strangled.

After his arrest, Strohmeyer three times confessed to the crime to Long Beach and Las Vegas police, and several of his friends testifed before a grand jury that he also had confessed to them.

Abramson talked Tuesday about how the teenager's abuse of alcohol and addiction to methamphetamine adversely had affected his "conscious mind."

Koot countered, however, that correspondence recovered from Strohmeyer's personal computer indicated he had fantasized about a sexual encounter with a young girl.

"We're going to show he planned to do this," Koot said. "His sexual proclivity is shown through e-mail, (Internet) chat-room dialogue and hundreds of photos of pre-pubescent (sexual encounters)."

The seizure of a computer by Long Beach police following Strohmeyer's arrest three days after the slaying was at the heart of the defense demand that the trial be postponed.

The original trial judge, Don Chairez, had ruled that the computer was unlawfully confiscated because a police affidavit legally necessary to justify the computer's seizure never mentioned it. But on Friday the Nevada Supreme Court in a 3-2 vote reversed Chairez and ruled that the computer and its sexually explicit contents could be used.

Abramson and co-counsel Richard Wright fumed that Strohmeyer's constitutional rights were being violated and predicted that a federal court would overturn any conviction resulting from the use of the computer information.

"This trial would be a run-through at taxpayer expense," Abramson predicted. "A conviction would be overturned by a federal court with lightning speed."

The defense team huffed that their experts weren't going to have time before trial to conduct their own tests on the computer, and that a delay in the trial was necessary to formulate some sort of defense to the information.

Abramson said that teenagers other than Strohmeyer also had used the computer and that much of the purported child pornography recovered had been sent unsolicited to the home.

Of the about 800 purportedly pornographic images recovered from the computer's hard drive, Abramson said only three or four appear to contain children "where something is happening."

District Attorney Stewart Bell, who personally is prosecuting the case, said the computer contents relate directly to "motive, intent, opportunity and premediation." He chastised defense attorneys for seeking a delay on the claim that they hadn't prepared for the possibility the high court could overturn Chairez.

"They were aware the Supreme Court could rule either way," Bell said. "To say they had no time to prepare is absurd. We've been waiting a year and a half, and this case needs to be tried."

Although the Nevada Supreme Court ruled the computer is admissible, Leavitt decided prosecutors could use it only as evidence to contradict defense theories or Strohmeyer's testimony -- if he chooses to take the witness stand.

In other developments:

* Leavitt, who is running for a seat on the Nevada Supreme Court, withstood a challenge that he had assumed the case for political purposes after Chairez resigned his judgship in May to make his own bid for U.S. Congress. Leavitt explained that as chief judge, he was the one who took over trials from Chairez's court. Deputy District Attorney Peggy Leen noted that defense attorneys hadn't contested Leavitt's authority during six prior hearings and charged that Leavitt's refusal to give the defense its trial delay was the motivation for the motion.

* Leavitt reaffirmed that Court TV will be permitted to broadcast the trial from gavel to gavel despite defense complaints that the cameras would be a distraction. The judge explained that with only 60 seats in his courtroom, the broadcast -- locally aired exclusively by 24-hour local news Las Vegas 1 cable channels 1 and 39 -- would prevent overcrowding. Because Wright complained that the broadcasts would violate his privacy rights, Leavitt ordered that cameras not be allowed to focus on him.

* The judge ordered Strohmeyer to undergo an independent psychiatric exam that prosecutors could use to counter the claim that he couldn't form the intent to commit the murder.

* Defense attorneys demanded that prosecutors reveal any favorable treatment given to witnesses scheduled to testify, but Leen said there were no such "bargains, promises or leniency" provided.

* Koot said the odds are one in 149 million that DNA evidence from a cigarette found near the victim's body came from Strohmeyer.

* Jurors will not have an opportunity to view the restroom where Iverson died because it has been remodeled by the resort.

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