High court urged to overturn Elko County murder conviction

Attorney David Houston, representing Major, asked the high court to overturn his client's convictions and cancel two no-parole life terms imposed by District Judge Jack Ames of Elko.

Houston argued Major's trial attorney, Matthew Stermitz, had a conflict: He ran unsuccessfully for district attorney prior to the March 1996 trial - and one of his campaign promises was to reopen Major's case for possible prosecution.

But Elko County District Attorney Gary Woodbury, who defeated Stermitz and wound up prosecuting Major for the murder of Tina Dell, argued that the convictions and sentence should stand. The Supreme Court will rule at a later date.

Major, convicted of first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon, originally reported his live-in girlfriend missing in April 1988. He told authorities she was taken by an unknown man dressed in black.

The woman's remains were located in a Palisade Canyon wash 20 miles southwest of Carlin in January 1990.

Major was arrested in November 1990, but charges were dropped more than a year later by former Elko County District Attorney Marshall Smith - a day before Major's scheduled trial.

Major's second arrest was in February 1992, on charges filed in Eureka County where the body was found. Woodbury, Eureka County's prosecutor at the time, brought the case. But it was dismissed on grounds the murder probably occurred in Elko County.

Woodbury, who said Smith's decision to drop the first charges prompted him to run for district attorney, then filed charges a third time shortly after he was elected Elko County's top prosecutor.

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