David Roger’s testy relationship with commissioners looms over DA choice

By Joe Schoenmann

Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012 | 2 a.m.

The importance of the Clark County district attorney’s job was underscored last year as the county faced one of the thorniest debates in years over the process to examine fatal police shootings.

District Attorney David Roger resigned this month with three years remaining on his four-year term. He has taken a job with the police union.

The Clark County Commission, which was at odds with Roger over changes to the inquest, must now appoint a replacement from three finalists selected by a county panel:

• defense attorney and Las Vegas City Councilman Steve Wolfson;

• Drew Christensen, Clark County’s director of appointed counsel;

• and John Hunt, former chairman of the Clark County Democratic Party and occasional political candidate.

Whoever gets the job will navigate a political minefield created by Roger’s tense relationship with the commission. Their disagreement grew more contentious as Roger tried, with the police union’s support, to get the Legislature to kill the inquest altogether. They also clashed over the DA’s budget, which commissioners oversee, and the large number of costly death penalty cases the office has pursued.

It likely didn’t help that Roger is a Republican, while all seven commissioners are Democrats.

Now commissioners can handpick a replacement, who they say must do a better job of communicating with them. According to people close to the process, the final choice will be a difficult one. While each candidate has obvious strengths, their weaknesses can’t being overlooked.

Wolfson has a range of related experience, having served as a county prosecutor, then in the office of the U.S. attorney and in private practice since 1987. He is married to Jackie Glass, a former Clark County District Court judge who now stars on the TV show, “Swift Justice With Jackie Glass.”

As far as his ability to get votes from commissioners, Wolfson’s experience with Commissioner Larry Brown when Brown was a member of the Las Vegas City Council doesn’t hurt. Wolfson has also worked with campaign consultant Gary Gray, who is married to Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani.

On the negative side, Wolfson can come off as aloof, other attorneys said. That reputation may not work in an office that one commissioner said is suffering from poor morale.

Christensen, on the other hand, is described by those who know him well as organized and easygoing, someone who “gets along with everyone.” He is director of the Office of Appointed Counsel, which selects private attorneys to represent indigent defendants, and is married to county prosecutor Nell Keenan.

People say he knows the political workings of the county and the offices of public defender and district attorney.

His negatives include the fact that few commissioners know much about him.

But perhaps the biggest strike against him is that as a young public defender he was the lawyer for Robert Hays, who was sent to prison for 14 years for a crime he did not commit. In the 2007 ruling that freed Hays — after District Court and the state’s Supreme Court upheld the erroneous conviction — federal Judge Roger Hunt said Christensen “was ineffective in a number of ways and … his actions were not guided by tactical or strategic analysis nor founded on well-reasoned determinations of how to best represent his client. In fact, many of counsel’s failings were due more to the standard of practice prevalent at the public defender’s office … or were the result of inexperience and lack of independent thought.”

Hunt is a known quantity and well-liked, sources say. His political credentials as former head of the Democratic Party are important to some members of the commission.

Hunt’s political affiliation, however, could hurt him if commissioners don’t want the appointment to be seen as too much of a sop to Democrats by an all-Democratic commission.

Hunt has enemies too. In 2008, he criticized the Culinary Union for heavy-handed support of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Some wonder if that conflict might haunt him as commissioners consider their appointment.

“We need someone who will improve the morale over there, instead of a department run by fear,” said Giunchigliani, who said her assessment comes from insiders in the district attorney’s office. “We need someone who has positive relationships not just with the police union but with … a lot of community players out there, the sheriff, the various constables — someone who is willing to bring different people to the table and open lines of communication.”

After controversial police shootings resulted in the deaths of Trevon Cole and Erik Scott, county commissioners moved to change the coroners inquest, the decades-old process for vetting police killings. Some saw the process as so weighted toward police that honest dissections of the incident were impossible. Commissioners voted to give the families of the deceased the ability to ask questions through a representative during the inquest.

The police union fought back, standing with Roger in April to ask state legislators to eliminate the inquest process altogether. Addressing state lawmakers, Roger said county commissioners “got it wrong,” when they altered the process.

Commissioners felt slighted and the conflict spread to other issues. Roger refused the county’s request to find 9 percent cuts in his budget like other departments. (He later cut three positions that were already vacant.)

Commissioners attacked Roger’s spending on death penalty cases. Capital cases cost the county about $250,000 each versus $50,000 for non-death penalty cases, county officials said. They cited statistics showing Roger’s office had about 80 death penalty cases pending compared with 33 in Los Angeles County, which is five times larger than Clark County.

Brown, the commissioner, said he’s looking for someone who has the ability to strengthen the public trust in the justice system. “All those things (the coroner’s inquest and questions about death penalty cases) are paramount to that public trust, and the DA has to become the face of that trust,” he said.

Commissioner Steve Sisolak said the death penalty and coroner’s inquest are important to him, too. He’s also concerned about the office’s budget.

“I want someone who understands that while they are an independently elected officer, even if appointed for now, they’ll have to work with us on the budget,” he said. “They have to be able to litigate but be an administrator, as well. And I’m still undecided at this point.”

Commissioner Tom Collins has made up his mind. He said he likes Hunt, “who is fair to everybody and has the charisma and personality to represent the office in a good way.”

“He’s probably the most qualified,” he said, adding that the new DA has to “stand up for prosecutors ... to get funding for the staff that he needs.”

Collins attributed Roger’s departure, in part, to the fact that the office needs about 75 positions to be fully staffed. “I’m no fan of David Roger but he wanted to have his department funded and that’s what I expect out of the DA,” he said.

Giunchigliani was undecided, citing positive qualities in all three candidates who were chosen by a seven-member panel assembled by County Manager Don Burnette. “We have some good candidates here,” she said.

All three are expected to make 10-15 minute presentations at the County Commission meeting next week.