MINUTES OF THE meeting
of the
ASSEMBLY Committee on Judiciary
Seventy-Second Session
February 26, 2003
The Committee on Judiciarywas called to order at 8:00 a.m., on Wednesday, February 26, 2003. Chairman Bernie Anderson presided in Room 3138 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada, and, via simultaneous videoconference, in Room 4401 in the Grant Sawyer Administrative Building in Las Vegas. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mr. Bernie Anderson, Chairman
Mr. John Oceguera, Vice Chairman
Mrs. Sharron Angle
Mr. David Brown
Ms. Barbara Buckley
Mr. John C. Carpenter
Mr. Jerry D. Claborn
Mr. Marcus Conklin
Mr. Jason Geddes
Mr. Don Gustavson
Mr. William Horne
Mr. Garn Mabey
Mr. Rod Sherer
COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT:
Ms. Genie Ohrenschall (excused)
Mr. Harry Mortenson (excused)
GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT:
Senator Dina Titus, Senatorial District No. 7
Assemblyman Wendell P. Williams, Assembly District No. 6
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
Allison Combs, Committee Policy Analyst
Risa B. Lang, Committee Counsel
Nancy Elder, Committee Secretary
OTHERS PRESENT:
Jim Nadeau, representing Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, Reno, NV
Don L. Means, Assistant Sheriff, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, Reno, NV
Jeffrey Riolo, Criminalist, Forensic Science Division, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, Reno, NV
Captain Will McHardy, Crime Lab Director, Forensic Science Division, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, Reno, NV
Richard L. Siegel, Ph.D., Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, Reno, and President, American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada
Liz Moore, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV
Gary Peck, Representative, ACLU, Las Vegas, Nevada
Dr. James Tate, Executive Director, National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression; and Chairperson, Coalition to Prevent the Erosion of Human Rights, Las Vegas, Nevada
Laura Mijanovich, Northern Nevada Coordinator, American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, Reno, NV
Mark Nichols, Executive Director of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), Las Vegas, Nevada
Tom Stoneburner, Director, Alliance for Workers’ Rights, Reno, NV
Franny Forsman, Chairman, Committee to Draft Ordinances, Civilian Review Board, Las Vegas, NV
Rosemary Williams, Clark County Sheriff’s Office, Las Vegas, Nevada
Chairman Anderson gave his standard opening remarks and opened the hearing on A.B. 55. He asked Jim Nadeau to present the bill.
Assembly Bill 55: Provides for collection of biological specimens for genetic testing from certain persons. (BDR 14-330)
Jim Nadeau, representing Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, said he was presenting A.B. 55 on behalf of Washoe County. He said the bill would be applicable to people who were convicted and subsequently required to give a blood sample for DNA testing. He said Don Means, Assistant Sheriff, would make the presentation. He noted that Don Means used to be a captain, but had recently been promoted to Assistant Sheriff, and that the DNA lab was under his direction. He also introduced Jeffrey Riolo, Criminalist, Forensic Science Division, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, and Captain Will McHardy, Crime Lab Director, Forensic Science Division, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office.
Chairman Anderson welcomed Sheriff Means and congratulated him on his promotion. Mr. Anderson noted that one of Sheriff Means’ sons had been a student in his class and was a great guy.
Sheriff Means thanked the Chair for the kind words. He mentioned that he had provided some handouts. There was one with some proposed amendments (Exhibit C), and another handout with graphic illustrations that would accompany the presentation (Exhibit D). He said after he had discussed the bill with numerous people, it had been determined that some of the language needed to be amended. He showed a presentation that demonstrated a colorful display of data to accompany his testimony. He said the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office served as a state repository Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) for the DNA Database, and the other CODIS site was at Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Laboratory. He said that:
The offenders’ samples have gone up. In the year 2000 it was 1,543, and as of today, it’s around 4,500. In 2000, we had 4 DNA database hits, in 2001 we had 9, in 2002 we had 17, and in 2003 we have already had 3 for just the month of January alone.
Sheriff Means said those figures had included samples from 4 homicide cases,
9 sexual assault cases; 7 burglaries; some serial sexual assaults, which
were cases that had been linked together; some serial burglaries; 2 auto
thefts; and
1 robbery. He added that it was
important to be familiar with the original crime, from which the sample had
been collected, and the crime that the sample had helped to solve. He said that in one crime, a sample that had
been collected from an offender of “lewdness with a child” had helped to solve
a homicide. There was another instance
in which a sample taken in a felony possession of a firearm case had helped to
solve a sexual assault case. There were 2 burglaries from which samples had
been obtained from the burglars, and those samples had helped to solve some
sexual assault cases. He also said there had been an incident where a sample
taken from an offender in a battery with a deadly weapon case had lead to the
offender’s conviction of a sexual assault.
Sheriff Means addressed the topic of grant funding. He said that in 1994 the state of Nevada had received $194,000 in federal grant money. In 2002 the federal grand funding had dropped to $30,000.
Chairman Anderson asked why the amount of funding had been lowered.
Sheriff Means replied that Nevada had not met the threshold for the required number of backlog samples. He said they had basically been penalized for their efficiency. He said Nevada did not have the same backlog as Virginia, New York, or California. He added that the Legislature had allowed the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office to charge the offender a fee to cover the costs of processing the samples. He informed the Committee that the fees they had collected from the offenders had covered only about 5 percent of their actual costs. He stated that in 2002 they should have collected about $644,400, but they had only collected $61,053.
Chairman Anderson asked if the dramatic shortfalls had been due to the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office not being able to collect a fee from the offenders. He added that it looked like they were 100 to 1 under-funded.
Sheriff Means responded that the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office was getting great cooperation from the prison system and from Parole and Probation. He said the problem was that they were so far down in the restitution scale. He said that the criminals would first be obligated to make restitution to the victim, to the court, and for room and board. He pointed out that making restitution for the costs of DNA samples was on the bottom of the list.
Sheriff Means said that he was proud of the sample collection work the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office had done. He noted that last year alone they had collected over 4,000 samples. He said that had only been possible because of the cooperation of the prison system, parole, and probation. He added that while the grant funding was down, the collection of the samples and the hits were up. He said they had been trying to find other ways to obtain grant funding, but it was difficult.
Mr. Nadeau interjected that the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office was asking for the authority to collect DNA samples from individuals who had committed crimes and who would have been captured under the existing law, but somehow had “fallen in between the cracks.” He said they also wanted to collect DNA samples from post-conviction individuals who had not had their samples collected, and from post-convicts who had moved to Nevada from other states.
Chairman Anderson asked if they were the repository for all the DNA samples gathered in the state of Nevada; Sheriff Means said that was correct.
Mr. Carpenter asked what was entailed in taking a DNA sample.
Sheriff Means said it was a mouth swab that was rubbed on the inside of a person’s cheek for a few seconds, and a fingerprint was taken as a double measure.
Mr. Nadeau reminded the Committee that in the past when they had first started taking DNA samples, they had used blood tests. He informed them that method had been updated to a swab. Sheriff Means offered to show the Committee how it was done.
Jeff Riolo, Criminalist, Forensic Science Division, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, stood up with Sheriff Means and they held up a swab, and Mr. Riolo said what an individual would do was take a swab and scrape cells from the inside of their cheek. He then showed the storage box and said they would put the swab in the box and send it to the laboratory.
Assemblyman Sherer asked if the samples were frozen, discarded, or preserved.
Mr. Riolo replied that the samples were maintained forever. He explained that once the lab had received the samples, they would be dried and preserved so that they would be usable in the future.
Assemblyman Horne asked for the numbers on the failure rates or misidentifications.
Mr. Riolo replied that there had not been any misidentifications.
Assemblyman Horne asked if he meant Nevada had not had any mismatches yet.
Mr. Riolo said that he had only been referring to Nevada. He explained that there were numerous safeguards in place to verify that a match was accurate. When a match was made through the database, it was reconfirmed in the laboratory, and then another sample was obtained from the individual to double check that the sample was a match.
Sheriff Means interjected that one of the things that was done at the laboratory was that they took a fingerprint and ran a fingerprint DNA match. He said if the computer showed a match, then another sample would be taken from the suspect for comparison.
Chairman Anderson asked if that was standard procedure as set by the FBI, and Mr. Riolo replied that it was.
Chairman Anderson said he believed that Washoe County had been one of the first such labs in the United States.
Sheriff Means said that Washoe County was one of the 10 pilot labs in the entire nation that actually began DNA testing in the late 1980s.
Assemblyman Horne said he had received an e-mail from an attorney who said her client had spent a year in jail due to a mistake that had been made from miscoding. He said he wondered how often that had occurred.
Sheriff Means said that was a Las Vegas case, and that it had been a clerical error. He said they had transposed numbers, and it had nothing to do with the DNA system.
Assemblyman Horne pointed out that it was still an error.
Sheriff Means agreed with Mr. Horne.
Chairman Anderson reiterated that the error was clerical.
Assemblyman Geddes said that he wanted to be clear that all they were doing at that time was adding subsections I, J, and K, concerning those situations where a sample would be obtained.
Mr. Nadeau replied that was correct. He said the only other thing that would be added to subsections I, J or K, would be an expanded list of crimes.
Chairman Anderson said he would have the Legal Division take a look at Section 5, to see if it would need to be removed or not, and he would ask the bill drafters for their opinion.
Assemblywoman Angle asked if the person who took the sample had to use force, or if this was a voluntary process.
Sheriff Means replied that the offender usually had taken his own sample. He did not know of any cases in which an offender had been strapped down to get the sample. He said there was a law in place that would allow them to use reasonable force if they needed to. He said some of the inmates in the Folsom Prison in California had been refusing to give samples because they did not want to get in any more trouble, but he knew of no such problem in Nevada.
Ms. Angle asked how they could make sure the identification mistake on the clerical error would never happen again.
Mr. Riolo said that initially the DNA profile was put into the database, and if it produced a hit, they would go back to that sample again. He said they would go back and do another DNA profile on that same sample again. If they had identified a match, they would go back and take another DNA sample on that same individual, and the new sample would have to be matched up the same way. He concluded that an individual’s profile was matched up 3 different times.
Sheriff Means reminded the Committee that they also took an index fingerprint to make sure the person was who he said he was.
Assemblyman Carpenter remarked that he had read research that showed that this process had also been helping to clear people who had been falsely accused of crimes.
Assemblyman Mabey asked what the chain of command or sequence the sample was carried through to make sure that it would not get mixed up with other samples.
Mr. Riolo replied that the samples were called investigative samples. After one was taken, the swab was put into an envelope with the offender’s name on it, and then it was brought into the lab and logged in with its own number. He said if it were to match, that was when the process of taking another sample would begin.
Chairman Anderson said he believed Mr. Mabey was referring to the “chain of evidence,” making sure the sample was being kept in a secure environment.
Mr. Riolo said the chain of evidence samples followed a proper chain of custody. He said if anyone even touched a sample, there would be a signature applied to it. He said everyone would know who had handled it before him or her. He said the offenders’ samples were looked at the same way. They were sealed in an envelope, and they were kept separate from other convicted offenders’ envelopes.
Assemblyman Conklin said that he had been wondering if some freedoms had been violated. He wondered how Nevada’s current statute compared to other states.
Mr. Nadeau replied that many other states captured the DNA sample for any felony that had occurred. He added that anyone in Nevada who had provided a sample for the database had already been convicted of the crime. He said when that sample was put into the database, it was labeled with a number, not the individual’s name. He said only that agency could run it through the database, as access was very limited, and the database was actually controlled by the FBI.
Chairman Anderson informed the Committee that there had been a lengthy discussion on genetic testing two years before. He said Nevada did not require DNA testing for all felonies, but only for felonies listed in subsections C and D, which included specific types that were relative to sexual practices. He said that Nevada needed to make sure that people who had been convicted of crimes and later moved into Nevada from other states would be treated the same as people who had been convicted of crimes within the state.
Mr. Nadeau confirmed that what Chairman Anderson had just said was the primary intent of the bill, and he mentioned that A.B. 55 was Chairman Anderson’s bill.
Sheriff Means said that other states such as Florida, Washington, and Virginia required DNA testing for all suspects of felony crimes. He said if they were not convicted of the crime, their samples would be removed from the system. He said that removing samples would be a logistical nightmare.
Sheriff Means showed the Committee what a DNA profile looked like.
Chairman Anderson said the Committee would hear more about DNA later on, and that what they had heard on that day was a good introduction. Chairman Anderson noted that Richard L. Siegel, Ph.D., Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, Reno, and President of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, had signed up to speak in opposition of A.B. 55. He asked him if he had taken the opportunity to read the amendments, and he informed him that Section 1 had been completely removed.
Dr. Siegel said Section 1 was the portion of A.B. 55 he had objected to. He said Section 1 had some very broad language about somebody who would be investigated or court-ordered. He said the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada had accepted the idea that this would be a program for people who were convicted of felonies, but they did not accept the idea that people who volunteered to give their DNA samples would have their privacy rights invaded. He said if people would voluntarily waive their privacy rights, they should have a full and informed consent to voluntarily provide the sample, and to be informed that the sample would potentially be available on a lifetime basis, and that they would be distinguished from all people who would not provide that DNA. He said the same concerns would apply to the court order; if there would be a court order, they would understand there should be a court order for the Investigation of the particular crime. He said if the person were found to be innocent, and no charges were brought, he should not be distinguished from any other person, and there should not be a criminal DNA file remaining on that person.
Chairman Anderson thanked Dr. Siegel, and closed the hearing on A.B. 55. He said he was inclined to accept the concerns Dr. Siegel had expressed. He said Section 3 might have some concerns that needed to be investigated. He said he would talk to the bill drafter about Section 5.
Risa B. Lang, Committee Counsel, advised the Chairman that the language in Section 5 had been added because the person might have already submitted a biological specimen for their initial conviction or for having had committed another crime, so it would not be necessary to take it a second time. She advised the Chair that the language needed to remain.
The Chair said he would entertain a motion.
ASSEMBLYMAN CARPENTER MOVED TO AMEND AND DO PASS A.B. 55.
ASSEMBLYMAN GUSTAVSON SECONDED THE MOTION.
THE MOTION CARRIED. (Assemblywoman Ohrenschall and Assemblyman Mortenson were absent for the vote.)
Chairman Anderson welcomed Assemblyman Wendell P. Williams, District No. 6, and Senator Dina Titus, Senatorial District No. 7. He said Assemblyman Williams and Senator Titus were there that day to take a look at the study on traffic stop data that came from A.B. 500 of the 71st Legislative Session.
Allison Combs, Committee Policy Analyst, provided all members of the Committee with a report entitled “A.B. 500 Traffic Stop Data Collection Study” (Exhibit E).
Assemblyman Williams said it was an honor to have the opportunity to follow up on a bill that had passed last session. He said he was happy to report that A.B. 500 of the 71st Legislative Session, had the support of all of the law enforcement agencies of the state, as well as various national organizations. He explained that there had never been an intent to point fingers at anyone in law enforcement, but the studies had shown that racial profiling was an issue that many people were being faced with. He said, “There is nothing more American than driving a car.” He expounded that Americans did everything in their cars: “travel, vacation, eat, use them as offices.” Mr. Williams said it was not fair that some people had become victims of racial profiling when they were simply out driving their cars. He said the national poll that had prompted last session’s bill indicated that 82 percent of African Americans who were driving their cars, and had been stopped for some reason, were also illegally searched. He said the same scenario had been happening to Hispanics. He said everyone looked to law enforcement for public safety. He expressed that it was unfortunate, but data showed that Nevada needed to make some changes. He emphasized that it was time for Nevada to look at what it was doing and where it was going.
Chairman Anderson thanked Assemblyman Williams and called on Senator Titus.
Senator Titus informed the Committee that she represented District No. 7 in Clark County. She said she was there to thank Assemblyman Williams for last session’s bill and to commend him for his efforts. She said there was a new bill draft in the Senate that included two primary elements:
Assemblywoman Buckley thanked Assemblyman Williams and Senator Titus for their work in such an important area. She asked Mr. Williams if he had been able to interpret why a greater amount of African Americans and other minorities were stopped than Caucasians.
Mr. Williams opined that there was compelling information to show the reasons why cars had been stopped. He said in many cases there had been no mechanical reasons or traffic violations that would have caused the cars to be stopped. He said the data showed that the number of stops that had been made for no apparent reason was high.
Assemblyman Mabey asked if there were any studies that showed if the race of the policeman was a factor.
Mr. Williams replied that the studies showed that the ethnicity of the officer had not made a difference. He said officers were trained to racially profile people without realizing it.
Senator Titus added that it was more of an institutional problem than a personal problem.
Chairman Anderson said this was a very important issue for the state of Nevada. He commended Assemblyman Williams, Senator Titus, and all of the law enforcement agencies of the state for their support and cooperation in the study. He said it was time to hear some testifiers from Las Vegas.
Liz Moore, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN), said that Gary Peck, Representative, American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada (ACLU), had asked her to mention that there might be more than two people who would want to speak. She said that PLAN was a coalition of more than 45 organizations, including labor, environmental, gay/lesbian, bisexual/transgender organizations, and civil rights organizations. She said the coalition was an anti-racist organization. She said they had strived to bring a focus not only to individual acts of racism and stereotypes but that they had also looked at the ways institutions had created unjust patterns and results. She said it was necessary to focus on patterns on results, not on intentions. PLAN had supported A.B. 500 of the 71st Legislative Session when the study was created. She said they did so because the study was about the institutional picture. She said that the issue of racial profiling was not about assuming that the results were created consciously and purposefully, but through learned stereotypes that were common and learned through society. She said it was almost impossible not to learn those stereotypes. She pointed out that it would be crucial for individuals and institutions to recognize and unlearn those stereotypes and to change behavior accordingly. She said that PLAN encouraged further study and ongoing data collection. She asked the people in the room who had come in support of A.B. 500 of the 71st Legislative Session, and continued studies to stand; approximately seven people stood up.
Gary Peck said that the ACLU had worked with a number of senators, including Senator Titus, and Assemblyman Williams to assure that the right steps would be taken to do away with racial profiling. He said he believed that most police officers were trying to do their job fairly and professionally and that most police officers were not intentionally or maliciously profiling people by race. He opined that bias was unconscious. He said the ACLU was in support of legislation that would include ongoing data collection for the purpose of providing management with the kind of tools they might need to take the appropriate remedial actions to address the problem. He pointed out that the data powerfully, unambiguously, and clearly showed there was biased policing going on. He said the problem was systematic and widespread. He said the ACLU commended law enforcement for recognizing that there was a problem and for their willingness to help to solve the problem. He said Assemblyman Williams had invited people to show up to express their heartfelt concerns. He wanted the Committee to be aware that people had taken time out of their busy schedules, and had shown up there, in hopes of having an opportunity to speak.
Dr. James Tate, Executive Director, National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, said he was also the chairperson on the Coalition to Prevent the Erosion of Human Rights. He said that he felt people were living in the most dangerous times in American history. He said he had lived through the McCarthy and HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) period. He said there were so-called “anti-terrorism” bills that were being passed or considered. He said he thought most people would agree that it was clearly a dangerous time when racial profiling on the part of the police was being looked at and attempted to be justified. He expressed concern about the behavior of the police towards people once they had been stopped, such as handcuffing and forcing a person to put their hands on the hood of a running police car in the summer. He added that their cars were being searched without cause. He said the reasons these wrongful actions had taken place were obvious, and that it was a departmental policy problem. He said that in spite of the fact that the bias was unwritten, it was known to every police officer. He said the problem would need to be addressed not only with the individual police officer, but also with the department itself. He opined that any laws that were passed would need to target the departments as well as the individuals. He agreed there needed to be ongoing data collection. He thought the data should include the identification of the officers along with the date, time, location, the reason for the stop, and any findings. He pointed out that the reason these details had not been included in the first study the state had done was because a sheriff, Jerry Keller, had opposed to identifying police officers. He said that had become the very reason the police department was using to claim the study was flawed. He said the only way to change an individual’s behavior was to require the change of policy of the organization. He suggested that anything else would not be effective. He thanked the Chair for the opportunity to speak.
Chairman Anderson thanked Dr. Tate for his testimony. He called on Laura Mijanovich, Northern Nevada Coordinator, American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.
Ms. Mijanovich thanked the Committee for the opportunity to speak. She provided a handout that outlined her concerns (Exhibit F). She noted that not only was she representing the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, but she was also there as a Hispanic person and a concerned citizen. She said she was one of the founding officers of Nevada Hispanic Services, which was one of the leading social service agencies for Hispanics. She said she was also a member of the Irish-Mexican Alliance, a member of The Hispanic Citizens Review Board of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, and The Task Force to Study Racial Profiling put together by the Reno Police Department. She said she was concerned about the troubling findings that had shown strong evidence of “racially biased policing.” She said she was there to support Assemblyman Williams’ request to continue further studies. She said ongoing data collection was not only useful in assessing the prevalence of racial profiling, but it also would help law enforcement to manage better distribution of resources, and it would help the Legislature to monitor the progress of any measures that would be taken.
Mark Nichols, Executive Director of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), Nevada, said he wanted to speak to the Committee as the son of Sergeant Jerry Nichols, a University of Minnesota police officer. He said it happened to be the 27th anniversary of his father’s death from a heart attack at the age of 50. He said his dad had instilled in him respect, love, and honor of the police profession. He expressed that he grew up trusting police officers. He said he had come to understand why some people did not. He said he had respect for the integrity of police officers. His father had said that police officers had to have a higher standard and expectation than the public did. He said his father had served as a union steward and a vice president of the union back in the late 1960s and early 1970s when law enforcement officers were just beginning to be unionized and organized. Mr. Nichols said from that role, his father had instilled in him a tremendous commitment to advocate not only for himself, but also for others. He said he knew of two instances in which his father had declined to advocate for police officers, because he was convinced that those police officers were in the wrong. In one case the police officer needed to be disciplined by being told to leave that profession. He opined that racial profiling was nothing but a shortcut of law enforcement that did not effectively carry out law enforcement’s duty to the public. He said the public needed to have higher expectations of the law enforcement agencies. He said that he and NASW were committed to supporting whatever legislation would come to implement law enforcement functions in a manner that would be free of any biases.
Tom Stoneburner, Director, Alliance for Workers’ Rights, said that the Alliance consisted largely of low-income Nevada workers. He explained that those workers had asked him to attend the meeting that day on their behalf. They wanted to ask for the Committee’s support in continuing ongoing data collection that would assist in identifying systemic problems and in implementing remedial action. He said he also wanted to thank Senator Titus and Assemblyman Williams for their attention to the problem.
Chairman Anderson called on Reverend Barrett from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Gary Peck said Reverend Barrett had had to leave to appear on a radio show to speak on the same issue. He said Reverend Barrett wanted the Committee to know that it was important to be aware that racial profiling was going on, and to know what kinds of programs and training programs were and were not effective.
Chairman Anderson asked Mr. Peck to help him determine who was actually still present at the Las Vegas site. He called on Franny Forsman, Chairman, Committee to Draft Ordinances on Civilian Review Board.
Ms. Forsman said she was not there as the federal public defender, but was appearing in her individual capacity, and also as the former chair of a committee created by the county commission to draft the ordinance that had created the Civilian Review Board for the Metropolitan Police Department. She said she supported a credible data-gathering process, and she hoped that special care would be taken to ensure that the results would be believable and could be acted upon. She said she had learned through her experience of working on various civilian rights committees, that there was a deep and abiding mistrust towards law enforcement agencies on the part of minority groups.
Chairman Anderson called on Patricia Vasquez in Las Vegas, whom Mr. Peck explained had had to leave to go teach at the community college. He said she had been there in her individual capacity and as a member of PLAN. Chairman Anderson asked if Rosemary Williams was in attendance, and she was.
Rosemary Williams, police officer, Las Vegas, Nevada, said there was disparity of the law when it came to a lot of minorities. She said she had agreed with what everyone else had said in that meeting. She said she had seen minority people arrested for jaywalking and for not having a headlight on their bicycles. She said it was upsetting and disheartening, and that the police department should be held liable for the actions of their officers.
Chairman Anderson said he had appreciated hearing from Ms. Williams as a police officer, as well as from her personal point of view. He asked to hear from a UNLV student, but Mr. Peck explained he had had to leave, but he had been there in support of the state continuing to gather data on racial profiling. None of the people remaining had intended to speak, but had shown up in support of A.B. 500 of the 71st Legislative Session, and to encourage that efforts be continued in studying racial profiling.
Mr. Peck thanked the Committee for the opportunity they had to be heard that day.
Assemblyman Williams thanked the Chair for allowing him to do some follow-up on A.B. 500 of the 71st Session. He said he that they would now need to sit down and look at legislation that would move Nevada to the next step. He said they would need to eliminate barriers that had prevented Nevada from having law enforcement and community partnership that would be one to be proud of.
Chairman Anderson once again commended Assemblyman Williams and the law enforcement agencies for undertaking this issue two years ago. He said discrimination existed in a wide variety of areas. He added that society was changing at a quick speed.
Assemblyman Williams said it would be premature to discuss the details of the legislation that had recently been drafted. He said they would eventually be presenting it.
Ms. Buckley said it was remarkable that law enforcement had been willing to come to the table to make the study possible. She also commended Assemblyman Williams for orchestrating that event.
Chairman Anderson adjourned the meeting at 10:06 a.m.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
________________________
Nancy Elder
Committee Secretary
APPROVED BY:
Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, Chairman
DATE: