Clark County ranks fifth in the nation for counties with the highest number of new death sentences in the last five years (2017-2021). The death penalty is being aggressively pursued while at the same time, nationally, new executions, new death sentences, and public opinions of the practice are at record lows and the practice itself continues to erode.

Virginia has executed more people than any other state in the nation — and is the most recent to abolish the death penalty. Most U.S. states have either abolished the death penalty (23) or have an official moratorium (10), while another 10, including Nevada, have not had an execution in at least 10 years.

Eleven people were executed in the United States in 2021 – the fewest of any year since 1988. We are told that the death penalty is necessary for “the worst of the worst,” yet the data demonstrate these individuals were among the most vulnerable or impaired. According to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center, 10 out of the 11 people executed suffered from one or more of the following impairments: serious mental illness (5); brain injury, developmental brain damage, or an IQ in the intellectually disabled range (8); chronic serious childhood trauma, neglect, and/or abuse (9). This does not excuse their actions. However, along with well-documented racial bias regarding who both the offender and victim are, it does point to systemic issues in how and when the death penalty is pursued and carried out.

Death penalty abolition has bipartisan political support. Republican legislators in our neighboring state of Utah previously announced plans to introduce an abolition bill in the 2022 legislative session. District attorneys in Utah – two Democrats and two Republicans – wrote an open letter advocating for death penalty abolition, citing that the practice has an “inherently coercive impact” on plea negotiations. They allege that “A defendant’s need to bargain for one’s very life in today’s legal culture… gives already powerful prosecutors too much power to avoid trial by threatening death.”

These statements raise questions about why Clark County is so aggressively pursuing the death penalty, out of step with other jurisdictions. During Nevada’s 2021 legislative session, Assembly Bill AB395 – which would have abolished the death penalty in Nevada – passed in the House along party lines but could not even get a vote in the Senate. Notably, two Senators responsible for hearing the bill, Nicole Cannizzaro and Melanie Scheible, work for the Clark County District Attorney.

The last two years in Nevada have had no shortage of social problems that require strong governance to address, including the COVID-19 pandemic, an affordable housing crisis, and volatile employment, among others. Yet the state has used its limited resources to proactively pursue executing Zane Floyd, who like others who have recently died at the hands of governments, has organic brain damage and PTSD. 

Further, it is unclear whether the state of Nevada even has a legal mechanism for carrying out executions. In July 2020, the American Bar Association (ABA) reported that Nevada returned its unused supply of lethal injection drugs in response to a lawsuit brought upon by drug manufacturers. State law dictates that all executions must be carried out by lethal injection. Nevada’s response has been to propose experimental drug cocktails made up of unauthorized drugs, inevitably leading to more lawsuits.

Nevada should join the trend of abolishing the death penalty once and for all. It is costly and biased. Only four counties in the U.S. have had more new death sentences in recent years. At the same time, prosecutors outside of Nevada allege that the death penalty is used as a tool to coerce defendants into plea deals to avoid going to trial. Nevada has not had an execution since 2006. Our elected officials should use state resources to address ongoing challenges residents face, not to spend tax dollars and time pursuing executions.

Katie Durante, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Law, and Society at Nevada State College where she teaches in the Criminal Justice and Social Justice programs.