We've heard of prosecutors overreaching to get defense lawyers, but this is just ridiculous. If it wasn't in a major newspaper, we wouldn't believe it.

A prosecutor is threatening to have a defense attorney arrested for possessing file copies of the alleged pornographic photos he received in discovery from the state. These are copies of the photos of a young girl the state is charging were illegally possessed by the defendant.

A local attorney who is assisting a child pornography suspect in his legal defense says a prosecutor threatened him with arrest for possessing photos entered into evidence in the case.

Attorney Jonathan MacArthur said the threat was made by Clark County prosecutor Becky Goettsch, even though District Judge Lee Gates previously authorized MacArthur to possess alleged child pornography photos in order to assist his client's defense.

MacArthur said when Goettsch didn't like Gates' ruling, she then took it up with another district judge. That judge, Michelle Leavitt, threatened to hold MacArthur in contempt.

...Fellow defense attorneys labeled Goettsch's threat of arrest as outrageous. "It's infantile, it's wrong and it's petty," said Lawrence Goldman, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "There should be some common sense here," Goldman said. "It's either prosecutorial mania, an obsession with child pornography, or it's an opportunity for a prosecutor to be a jerk."

Las Vegas defense attorney JoNell Thomas, speaking on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, called Goettsch's threat "insane." "The tactic of threatening to have criminal defense attorneys arrested for doing their job is outrageous," she said.