Judge overturns conviction of ex-Las Vegas police officer in 1996 killing

A federal judge has overturned the conviction of Ronald Mortensen, a former Las Vegas police officer found guilty of murder in connection with an off-duty shooting that occurred almost 30 years ago.

In a Monday order, Senior U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson said the conviction of Mortensen in Clark County District Court is vacated and that Mortensen must receive a new trial.

“It’s awesome,” said attorney Tony Farmani, who was appointed to represent Mortensen in 2019. “It’s a long time coming.”

Mortensen, 59, maintained his innocence in a recent phone interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a story about police prosecutions in Las Vegas. He remains incarcerated and could not be reached for comment Monday evening.

His ex-wife, who visited him in prison earlier Monday, said it was likely he had not yet learned of the ruling.

Drive-by shooting

In December 1996, Mortensen and another off-duty Metropolitan Police Department officer, Christopher Brady, celebrated Mortensen’s birthday and drank heavily, according to prior Review-Journal coverage.

They drove to McKellar Circle, located in a Hispanic neighborhood near Paradise and Flamingo roads, and, Brady alleged, Mortensen shot a gun from the pickup they were in, killing Daniel Mendoza, 21. Mortensen claimed it was Brady who committed the shooting.

Mortensen was convicted of murder at trial and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Brady admitted to violating the civil rights of Hispanics and was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Attempts to reach Brady on Monday were unsuccessful.

Mistakes at trial

Dawson ruled that the jury received an erroneous instruction about the meaning of premeditation.

The jury “was never properly instructed on the requirements for deliberation as an element of first-degree murder,” the judge wrote. “And as discussed, a rational juror, properly instructed, could have drawn reasonable inferences from the evidence that Mortensen’s actions constituted a mere ‘unconsidered and rash impulse,’ which falls outside the requirements of first-degree murder.”

Mortensen also alleged that prosecutors suppressed evidence about Brady telling another officer he wanted to commit a drive-by shooting, Dawson wrote.

During Mortensen’s trial in 1997, his lawyer said he had received an anonymous call stating that Brady told Metro officer Mark Barry he wanted to carry out a drive-by shooting.

At the time, according to Dawson’s ruling, a prosecutor told the court: “I had an investigator talk to Mark B[a]rry. He said it is nonsense but I wanted to make that part of the record.”

In 1998, the year after Mortensen’s conviction, Barry testified to a federal grand jury that “Brady had repeatedly expressed a desire to conduct a ‘drive-by,’ and although Barry thought Brady was joking, Barry said that when ‘all of the sudden it happened,’ (and) ‘you have to put two and two together,’ ” according to the decision.

Mortensen tried to use Barry’s testimony to get a new trial, but the Nevada Supreme Court found that the testimony was “immaterial,” the ruling said.

Dawson disagreed. At trial, Brady had denied talking to Barry about harassing people, according to Monday’s ruling, but Barry’s testimony “would have exposed Brady’s lie about whether he discussed harassment of civilians — and a drive-by shooting most certainly qualifies as harassment — and therefore could have affected Brady’s credibility.”

The judge added: “It is reasonably probable Barry’s testimony would have changed the complexion of the case by undermining Brady’s credibility while exposing he might have a motive for the shooting that Mortensen did not. This, in turn, could have affected the believability of Mortensen’s version of the events and his claim that Brady took the Sig Sauer and fired the shots.”

When prosecutors learned at trial that Barry had “information favorable to the defense,” they had a duty “to exercise due diligence in gathering evidence of Officer Barry’s information,” Dawson wrote.

Prosecutors knew Barry’s information could help Mortensen’s defense, but no homicide investigators interviewed Barry, according to Dawson, who found that to be a serious failure.

“In short,” he wrote, “the state failed to disclose what it could have obtained.”

Mortensen was prosecuted by then-Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon, who has been accused of sex trafficking and conspiring to kill a client in a pending case. Guymon did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Attorney Frank Cremen, who represented Mortensen at trial, could not be reached for comment Monday.

What happens next?

Mortensen took his case to federal court in the form of a petition for writ of habeas corpus, originally filed in 2011.

Retired Federal Public Defender Franny Forsman said it’s unusual for one to be granted.

A defendant can file such a petition in federal court, raising constitutional issues, after exhausting all possible postconviction steps in the state system, including appeals to the Nevada Supreme Court, she said.

If granted, there are two possibilities, she said: A defendant can be taken to trial again or, if prosecutors decide not to retry the case, the defendant will be released.

It’s not clear if Mortensen will face a retrial. District Attorney Steve Wolfson did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

A spokesperson for Gov. Joe Lombardo, who was Clark County sheriff for eight years before he was elected governor, said he had no comment on the decision.

Mortensen’s ex-wife, Zoë, told the Review-Journal she found out about the ruling Monday afternoon while traveling back to Las Vegas from visiting him at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs.

“It’s been overwhelming,” she said. “I’ve never wavered before in my belief that he’s innocent. The evidence was always right there.”

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Review-Journal staff writers Jessica Hill, Katelyn Newberg, Alan Halaly and Bryan Horwath contributed to this report.