How a pardons board policy change affected the Nevada governor’s race

A change in how the Nevada Board of Pardons Commissioners discloses which cases will be considered at upcoming meetings opened the door for a series of campaign attacks on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Aaron Ford.

The attacks focus on a decision by Ford to recommend that the pardons board review a request by Norman Smith, who sought probation sooner than his original sentence allowed in connection with his conviction in two cases: one for voluntary manslaughter with a deadly weapon and another for robbery with a deadly weapon.

Smith’s attorney said his client’s mother personally lobbied Ford to place her son on the pardons board agenda, a step known as “sponsoring.” She also donated $250 to Ford’s campaign, which was later returned, according to the campaign.

Ford, Nevada’s two-term attorney general, did not attend the September pardons board meeting at which Smith’s case was considered, citing a family emergency. Smith’s request was unanimously rejected, and Ford’s office said later that he would have rejected it, too.

Policy change opens door

Ford’s actions in Smith’s case probably would not have come to light were it not for an agreement among pardons board members in June to begin publicly identifying which commissioners asked for review of an inmate request for relief. Prior to the September meeting, sponsorship was disclosed only when a commissioner mentioned it in a meeting.

The board comprises all seven members of the Nevada Supreme Court, the governor and attorney general.

Sponsorship is not unusual on the pardons board. In fact, it is required that every prison inmate coming before the board be sponsored by a pardons board commissioner.

In the September meeting, two other inmates convicted of murder were sponsored by Supreme Court Justice Linda Bell, and an inmate convicted of kidnapping and battery was sponsored by Justice Kristina Pickering.

Less than a week after the meeting, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s campaign issued a statement attacking Ford for “refusing to explain why he personally sponsored a commutation for Norman Smith, who was convicted of shooting and killing a pregnant woman.”

The initial salvo was followed by a series of ads from the Lombardo-aligned Better Nevada PAC attacking Ford’s record of voting to offer relief to convicted killers. The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s analysis of pardons board records found that the process is much more complex than the commercials suggest, and that Lombardo also has a record of voting in favor of clemency for applicants convicted of similar crimes, albeit less frequently than Ford.

A killing and a robbery series

In 2019, Smith was convicted of manslaughter for the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Tineshea Adams about four years prior in a fight outside a North Las Vegas restaurant in December 2015.

Smith shot Adams after she confronted Smith’s dining companion and a scuffle broke out. Adams was 20 weeks pregnant at the time.

At the time of the shooting, Smith was out on bail after being arrested in connection with an series of armed robberies in and around the Strip that September.

He was convicted for the robberies in 2017, and then for manslaughter. He agreed to aggregate his sentences, meaning he would combine his prison time for both convictions.

A judge handed down a sentence of 18 to 59 years in prison, making him eligible for parole after 18 years.

Attorney Kristina Wildeveld, who represented Smith in September’s pardons board meeting, argued that his robbery sentence had been heavy-handed in comparison to the sentence handed down for a co-defendant in the robbery. She suggested that the board commute his sentence so he could serve time for both convictions concurrently, or commute his robbery sentence to make him eligible for parole after the decade he’d already served.

“Doing so would not guarantee release,” Wildeveld said. “It would simply allow the parole board to evaluate Norman based upon who he is today rather than requiring him to wait another eight years.”

Neither Ford nor Lombardo sit on Nevada’s Board of Parole Commissioners.

Lombardo and the rest of the board unanimously rejected Smith’s application. His office said that, after reviewing Smith’s file, Ford also would have voted against the petition.

Ford’s office and campaign did not make him available for an interview, despite repeated requests.

Relief sought too early

The pardons board indicated that it found Smith’s request problematic because he had served much less time in prison than most people who come before the board. The overwhelming majority of inmates who sought relief over the past seven years had been in prison for multiple decades, according to a Review-Journal analysis of thousands of documents related to pardons board actions.

At Smith’s hearing, Chief Justice Douglas Herndon said a commutation would have been extraordinary based on how little time Smith had served of the manslaughter sentence.

Justice Patricia Lee agreed, telling Smith that he needed further rehabilitation to provide assurances that he could be safely released back into the community.

“You have to do the work first,” she said. “I don’t think you’re a bad person. I don’t think you’re a bad person at all.”

Ford has said through his office that he only wanted the board to review Smith’s case, noting that the inmate’s ailing mother, Treena Smith, had lobbied for her son’s case to be heard. Nevada secretary of state records show that she also gave Ford’s campaign $250 on Aug. 26, before the September pardons board meeting.

“I can donate to who I want to,” the elder Smith said when reached by phone.

Ford campaign spokesperson Prerna Jagadeesh said the campaign refunded the donation once it learned about it.

On the campaign trail, Lombardo has amplified the Better Nevada PAC’s attacks on Ford.

He told the Review-Journal in an interview that he’d never sponsored an inmate’s application, adding that, as a sponsor, Ford should have attended the meeting. Because sponsorship information was not disclosed before the September meeting, the Review-Journal could not verify his claim.

“In this case he [Smith] didn’t meet the criteria, in my opinion, and he had done less than half his time … associated with those particular crimes, heinous crimes,” Lombardo said during the September interview.

A question of sponsorship

Current and former board members disagree about what sponsorship means.

Herndon said that with many applications and only a limited number of spots for inmates to have their cases heard, board members must choose whether to sponsor an inmate’s case carefully.

In doing so, members weigh factors like the amount of time an inmate served, how related defendants were sentenced and the inmate’s disciplinary history.

The board considers up to 16 inmate applications for clemency each year. Nearly 1,200 inmates sought relief in the 12 months ending June 30, according to the board.

“If I’m going to sponsor somebody on the board, it’s because I’ve decided that they merit some type of relief consideration, not just a ‘Well, they sent me an application, so let’s just put them on, even though I’m going to vote against it, and I don’t think they deserve any relief,’” Herndon said.

He said Wednesday that he has sponsored inmate cases in the past but couldn’t recall how many. However, he added that he was more likely to sponsor applicants who had been released from prison and wanted clemency.

Retired Justice Michael Cherry said that when he was on the board, he sponsored a couple of people, but he did not equate sponsorship with advocacy.

“All I wanted is them to have a hearing,” he said.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at [email protected]. Contact Noble Brigham at [email protected].