LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Board of Pardons will consider whether to commute all death sentences in the state during a meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
The move, which was listed on the board’s meeting agenda, would change the sentences of those on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Gov. Steve Sisolak requested the item to be added to next week’s meeting on Wednesday, spokesperson Meghin Delaney said in an emailed statement.
“The Governor believes this is a worthy item for the Commissioners to consider and will be voting in favor of the measure,” she said. “The Governor has always said that capital punishment should be sought and used less often, and he believes this is an appropriate and necessary step forward in the ongoing conversation and discussion around capital punishment.”
Sisolak sits on the board, as does Attorney General Aaron Ford and the justices of the Nevada Supreme Court.
Ford and Gov.-elect Joe Lombardo declined to comment. Lombardo, a Republican who currently serves as Clark County sheriff, defeated Sisolak for reelection in November.
The move comes after Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that she would commute the death sentences for those on death row in the state, reducing their sentences to life in prison without parole.
Nevada hasn’t executed a prisoner since 2006. In recent years, the state has struggled to find the drugs necessary for executions, as drug companies sought to restrict the use of their products in capital punishment.
Meanwhile, the Nevada Legislature has seen bills to outlaw capital punishment outright proposed in the past three legislative sessions without success. In 2017 and 2019, bills were introduced to repeal the death penalty, but they died in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. In 2021, a bill passed the Assembly on a party-line vote, but died in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sisolak during the 2021 session said that while he previously supported ending capital punishment, the Oct. 1 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival gave him pause about backing a complete repeal. Instead, he preferred resolving the option for cases involving mass shootings, for example.
The bill was controversial in another way, too: The Senate Judiciary Committee, where the bill died, was headed by state Sen. Melanie Scheible, a Las Vegas Democrat who at the time worked as a deputy district attorney in Clark County. Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, a Las Vegas Democrat, also worked there at the time.
During testimony before the Assembly Judiciary Committee, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson — Scheible and Cannizzaro’s boss in their full-time work — testified adamantly against the repeal of the death penalty.
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