Coroner’s inquests

The Nevada Supreme Court in late October struck down Clark County's revised coroner's inquest process for investigating police-involved deaths. The high court unanimously held the plan, which calls for a justice of the peace to oversee the proceedings, "unconstitutionally intrude(s) upon the Legislature's exclusive constitutional authority to determine the jurisdiction of justices of the peace."

But the court specifically rejected the police unions' primary challenge to the revised process, holding the inquests do not violate the due process rights of law enforcement officers.

County commissioners changed the inquest process in late 2010 following two controversial killings by Las Vegas police, in response to critics who called the previous version biased in favor of police. The new system added a lawyer to represent the family of the deceased, an addition that police union leaders said transformed a fact-finding hearing into an adversarial proceeding.

Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani has proposed a change to the county code that would remove justices of the peace from the process, bringing the ordinance into compliance with the court's decision. Commissioners could vote today to schedule a public hearing on the revision. The board is scheduled to enter a private session after today's meeting to discuss the subject with the county's attorneys.

Fine. Taking legal advice to make sure new language would pass muster with the courts makes sense. But the matter should be resolved by year's end. There is now a backlog of 17 police-involved deaths awaiting an inquest hearing, and restoring public confidence in the process is vital.

Officers have always retained the right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment. But the state's highest court has held that a public inquiry does not automatically violate officers' rights, and taxpayers have their own right to a transparent process. It's not too much for the public expect a full airing of the circumstances under which their employees, our local police officers, take a human life.

The revamped coroner's inquests must be allowed to go forward. There's no way to tell whether they're an improvement until the public has a chance to see how they work.