Burglar's suit, supported by judge, says state jailed him for 16 months without a conviction
Bryan Hiser is currently serving a Nevada prison term of 10 years to life as a habitual offender and he has a lengthy rap sheet for burglary and theft, according to prosecutors.
According to a civil right lawsuit that was filed by Hiser, the state went ahead and imprisoned him for 16 months during a time when no conviction was in effect. Then, when he complained that he was being held illegally, he was put in solitary confinement, Hiser contends in the suit filed last month. It says District Judge Michelle Leavitt had ordered that Hiser be held at the Clark County Detention Center during this period, but state prison officials went ahead and transferred him anyway, reports the Las Vegas Review Journal.
The judge supported Hiser’s claim during a May 14 hearing, the suit says, saying that she had told both the Clark County Detention Center and the Nevada Department of Corrections they didn’t have authority to imprison Hiser:
“Yeah, after everything I did,” Leavitt said, according to the suit. “They even called my office, and I said, ‘You cannot.’ And CCDC was saying, ‘We’re transporting him back.’ And I said, “No, you cannot. He’s not under a term of imprisonment.’ Then the NDOC was pretending that they didn’t. OK, I think it’s bad. And I would suggest the state of Nevada intervene.”
The prison time at issue in the Clark County District Court suit followed a 2012 sentencing hearing in which Hiser got two consecutive terms of 10 years to life as a habitual offender. Leavitt vacated the conviction and sentence on Jan. 31, 2013, resentencing Hiser in August 2014 to two concurrent terms of 10 years to life, the Review-Journal says.
The suit names the Las Vegas metropolitan police department and the state department of corrections as defendants. Both declined the newspaper’s request for comment.
