Case Title: Perez v. Warden

Citation: 135 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 24

Docket Number: 75001

State: nevada

Court: Nevada Supreme Court

Date: 2019-07-03T00:00:00Z

Document:
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435 Nev, Advance Opinion 244
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEVADA

GERARDO PEREZ, No. 75001

a FILED

BRIAN WILLIAMS, WARDEN,
Respondent. JUL 03 2019

*

Appeal from a district court order denying a postconviction
petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark
County; Linda Marie Bell, Judge.

Affirmed.

Justice Law Center and Bret 0. Whipple, Las Vegas,
for Appellant.

Aaron D. Ford, Attorney General, and Jessica Perlick, Senior Deputy
Attorney General, Carson City,
for Respondent.

 

BEFORE HARDESTY, STIGLICH and SILVER, JJ.

OPINION'
PER CURIAM:
Appellant Gerardo Perez is serving a sentence for using a
deadly weapon in the commission of a second-degree murder in 2003. In a
postconviction for a writ of habeas corpus, Perez challenged the

1We previously decided this matter in an unpublished order but then
granted respondent's motion to publish the decision as an opinion.

19-28440

 
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computation of time he has served. He claimed, in relevant part, that the
credits he earns under NRS 209.4465 must be applied to the minimum term
of his enhancement sentence. The district court rejected that argument,
concluding that the applicable sentencing statute specified a minimum term
that Perez had to serve before becoming eligible for parole and therefore
NRS 209.4465(7(b) precluded respondent from applying the statutory
credits to the minimum term of Perez's enhancement sentence. Perez
argues that the district court erred because the sentencing statute is silent
as to parole eligibility.® We disagree because the statute that specified the
sentence for the primary offense (second-degree murder) also specified the
sentence for the weapon enhancement and that statute specified a
minimum term that Perez had to serve before becoming eligible for parole,
DISCUSSION

NRS 209.4465(7Xb) provides that statutory credits may be
applied to the minimum term of an offender's sentence “unless the offender
was sentenced pursuant to a statute which specifies a minimum sentence
that must be served before a person becomes eligible for parole.”*
(Emphasis added.) Pointing to NRS 193.165 as the statute under which he
was sentenced for the weapon enhancement, Perez argues that it says
nothing about parole eligibility and that the parole-eligibility requirement

*Perez has not raised any issues related to the other computation
claims in his petition.

°The exceptions to NRS 209.4465(7) that are set forth in NRS
209.4465(8) do not apply here because the offense at issue was committed
before the effective date of NRS 209.4465(8). See Williams v. State, Dep't of
Corr., 133 Nev. 594, 595 n.1, 402 P.3d 1260, 1261 n.1 (2017).

 
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in the sentencing statute for the primary offense should not be read into
NRS 193.165 because this court has said that the sentence for the primary
offense and the sentence for a weapon enhancement “are separate and
distinet,” State, Dep't of Prisons v. Bowen, 103 Nev. 477, 481, 745 P.24 697,
699 (1987).
When interpreting a statute, we focus on its plain language.

State v. Lucero, 127 Nev. 92, 95, 249 P.3d 1226, 1228 (2011). At the time of
the offense, NRS 193.165(1) expressly relied on the sentencing statute for
the primary offense to set the sentence for the weapon enhancement. 1995
Nev. Stat., ch. 455, § 1, at 1431; see also State v. Second Judicial Dist. Court
(Pullin), 124 Nev. 564, 18 P.3d 1079 (2008) (holding that the 2007
amendments to NRS 193.165 do not apply to offenses committed before the
amendments’ effective date). In particular, it required that the

 

enhancement sentence be “equal to . .. the term of imprisonment prescribed
by statute for the crime” during which the weapon was used. 1995 Nev.
Stat., ch. 455, § 1(1), at 1431. We conclude that NRS 194.165(1)'s plain
language incorporated the sentence prescribed by statute for the primary
offense. Bowen does not undermine that interpretation. The holding in
Bowen that the primary-offense sentence and enhancement sentence are
“separate and distinct” does not mean that those sentences are prescribed
by separate and distinct statutes. ‘Take a simple example: consecutive
sentences for multiple counts of robbery are “separate and distinct”

 
sentences, yet they are prescribed by the same statute. Considering the
plain language of NRS 193.165(1) before the 2007 amendments, we conclude
that the relevant sentencing statute for purposes of NRS 209.4465(7Xb) is
the one that prescribed the sentence for the primary offense.‘

Here, NRS 200,030(6) prescribed the sentence for the primary
offense of second-degree murder: either life with the possibility of parole or
a definite term of 25 years, both “with eligibility for parole beginning when
a minimum of 10 years has been served.” NRS 200.030(5Xa), (b) (emphasis
added). Perez. therefore was sentenced for the weapon enhancement
pursuant to a statute that specified a minimum sentence—10 years—that
he had to serve before becoming eligible for parole on the enhancement
sentence. See Williams, 133 Nev. at 597-98, 402 P.3d at 1262-63 (explaining
the difference between parole-cligibility statutes, which “delineate a
[maximum sentence], with eligibility for parole beginning when a minimum
of [x] years has been served,” and minimum-maximum sentencing statutes,
which are silent as to parole eligibility (alteration in original) (internal
quotation marks omitted), As such, NRS 209.4465(7)(b) precludes
respondent from applying Perez’s statutory credits to the minimum term of
his weapon enhancement sentence. The district court did not err in so

“The analysis is different under NRS 193.165(1) as amended in 2007
because those amendments eliminated the “equal” sentence language and
replaced it with minimum-maximum penalties that do not mention parole
eligibility. Those amendments do not apply here. Pullin, 124 Nev. at 572,
188 P.3d at 1084.

5Perez’s reliance on our unpublished decision in Garcia v. Baca,
Docket No. 70874 (Order Vacating and Remanding, Oct. 30, 2017), is
misplaced. That case involved a weapon enhancement sentence where the
statute that prescribed the sentence for the primary offense did not specify

 

 
holding and thus denying the postconviction habeas petition. We therefore
affirm the judgment of the district court.

—pNntoh, 5

Hardesty

AT QELS J
Stiglich

1S Luts ) J.

Silver

a term that the offender had to serve before becoming eligible for parole.
But notably, we looked to the statute that prescribed the sentence for the
primary offense to determine whether NRS 209.4465(7)(b) allowed the
offender's statutory credits to be applied to the minimum term of the
enhancement sentence—the same as we do here.

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