Former defense attorney heads conviction review unit
Clark County’s conviction review unit, a part of the district attorney’s office, was created in 2016. Its chief goal, according to the news release announcing its creation, is “to review factual claims of innocence, often when new evidence is brought to the attention of prosecutors.”
The unit has two permanent employees: Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Silverstein, who heads the unit, and paralegal Randy Ricks. Investigators, when needed, are pulled from the office’s investigative staff.
Silverstein is paid $175,000 a year. Ricks’ salary is just above $70,000. Investigators make between $56,740 and $87,880 a year.
According to the district attorney’s office, its conviction review unit was developed after consultation with professor John Hollway of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Recommendations from Hollway resulted in the hiring of Silverstein, who was formerly a career deputy public defender in Clark County with extensive experience on the sexual assault and murder teams.
At least 231 cases had been submitted to the unit for possible review as of August, with one felony resulting in an exoneration.
However, five misdemeanor drug cases were reversed through work by the unit following a news story that was jointly published by ProPublica and the Las Vegas Review-Journal in October 2016. The report showed how a field test used by Las Vegas police often gave false positive readings.
Fives cases were identified in which the defendants had pleaded guilty before the substances they possessed were lab tested and found not to be controlled substances.
The defendants in those cases were found to be innocent. They are among 21 people who have been exonerated in Clark County since 1996. The names and stories of the 21 can be found on the National Registry of Exonerations.
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