Judge says race can't play part in Strohmeyer trial

If prosecutors in the Jeremy Strohmeyer murder trial are permitted to play the "race card" and he is convicted, the Nevada Supreme Court would reverse the conviction and order a new trial, the teenager's lawyer warned.

Strohmeyer, 19, who is white, is charged in the rape and murder of a 7-year-old black girl, Sherrice Iverson, at a Primm Casino during the early morning hours of May 25, 1997, while her father gambled.

Attorneys were in court Wednesday to do battle for the advantage on a variety of legal and evidentiary issues as they start the final push toward the Aug. 17 trial.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Strohmeyer, a former high school honor student from an affluent Long Beach, Calif., family. There are allegations of six "aggravating circumstances" to legally justify a death sentence and one of those is that the slaying was race-based.

Los Angeles defense attorney Leslie Abramson fumed that community emotions about the case already are high and adding the racial issue will make it even more difficult to find an impartial jury.

She noted that while flying to Las Vegas for Wednesday's hearing, a lawyer sitting next to her said, "No offense, but I hope the jury kills your client."

Abramson said the motive of prosecutors in making race an issue "is to inflame the jury and inflame the public when they can never prove it."

She said that for prosecutors to use race as an aggravator, they must show the victim was targeted for murder because of race and, except for race, the crime wouldn't have occurred.

Deputy District Attorney Peggy Leen said the allegation of racial motivation is based on statements Strohmeyer made to another Clark County Detention Center prisoner and to two friends shortly after the slaying.

Abramson called the prisoner a "bi-polar, lithium-loaded jailhouse snitch" who heard a racial epithet that she dismissed as "unfortunate ... slang."

At the end of the arguments, Chief District Judge Myron Leavitt left the door open for prosecutors to use the issue during the penalty phase -- if Strohmeyer is convicted of first-degree murder -- but racism can't be suggested during the guilt phase of the trial.

He also left the door open for defense attorneys to again challenge that aggravator and another that the judge admitted he is concerned about involving the allegation the murder was committed to avoid arrest.

Leen argued that the ultimate decision should be left to a jury after the evidence is heard.

Other aggravators allege the death penalty is warranted because the murder was committed during two episodes of sexual assault, during a kidnapping and on a child under the age of 14.

In other issues at Wednesday's hearing:

A positive test could indicate, according to prosecutors, that Strohmeyer paused during or after the alleged murder to smoke a cigarette. It also would confirm the considerable evidence that Strohmeyer was in the restroom, although that appears to have been established through a security videotape, the grand jury testimony of his friend who was waiting outside and Strohmeyer's three confessions to police.

Leavitt predicted that half of the 400 would be excluded because of the questionaire answers. If impartial jurors cannot be found, defense attorneys have indicated the would ask to have the trial shifted to another Nevada city.

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