Plumlee
Plumlee v. Masto
Opinion
Opinion
I. Background
On June 4, 1991, Plumlee was charged in Washoe County, Nevada with the armed robbery and murder of Wilbur Rich- ard Beard. The Washoe County Public Defender’s Office was appointed to represent him, and Plumlee was assigned Deputy Public Defender David Allison. Allison’s boss was Chief Deputy Public Defender Shelly O’Neill.
Shortly after his arrest, Plumlee heard through the grape- vine that O’Neill was good friends with his roommate, John Dewey, who also was a suspect in the Beard robbery and mur- der. Plumlee came to believe that O’Neill had leaked to Dewey privileged information — namely, that Plumlee was going to point the finger at Dewey.
Plumlee also came to distrust Allison. Prior to being assigned to Plumlee’s case, Allison had applied for a position at the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office, but had not, 652 PLUMLEE v. MASTO Plumlee claimed, mentioned that to Plumlee. Allison received a job offer from the D.A.’s Office during his representation of Plumlee and took the job. Plumlee believed that Allison had deceived him about his applicant status at the D.A.’s Office when Plumlee had asked him about it.