Las Vegas NowHenderson Family Denied Delay in Coroner's Inquest

Henderson Family Denied Delay in Coroner's Inquest

The coroner's inquest into the police shooting death of a Henderson woman will happen as scheduled. Attorneys for the victim asked for a delay in order to get access to more evidence. But a judge denied that request Wednesday afternoon.

The attorney representing the family of the shooting victim wanted a delay because he says they have not received all of the evidence. Without that, they say they cannot pose critical questions during the inquest.

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The inquest is set to begin Thursday at 9 a.m. and will be shown live on Las Vegas One, channel 19 and streamed live here on LasVegasNOW.com.  

On Feb. 12, Henderson police officer Luke Morrison shot and killed Deshira Selimaj. Police had stopped Selimaj's husband after he ran a stop sign in his ice cream truck.

When she arrived in her own ice cream truck with two of their children, police say she had a knife. After using a Taser on her, they shot her.

Since the shooting, the family's attorney says he has struggled to get important pieces of evidence from the police and DA, including the official autopsy results and contact information for witnesses.

Last month, the attorney addressed this issue on "Face-to-Face with Jon Ralston."

"I've spoken to the deputy district attorney who will be handling this. He indicates to me that he will be fair by virtue of the expansion of the hearing to two days. It may very well be he will include some of those witnesses. But whether he does so or not is up to him. Number one and two, the question is his. They can be hardball questions, which I doubt. They can be softball questions, which we've seen lots of times in these types of proceedings. That's the criticism of the coroner's inquest proceeding to begin with. It is all too often perceived by the public to be a rubber stamp. We hope this case would be the exception," said Jim Jimmerson, the family's attorney.

During a coroner's inquest, only the district attorney can ask questions and present evidence. The family of the deceased and their attorney may submit questions in writing to the magistrate, but he or she does not have to ask those questions.

The coroner's inquest is basically a fact-finding mission -- not a trial. The jury must decide if the shooting was justified, excusable or criminal. But regardless of the jury's decision, the DA can choose not to pursue the case further.