HELEN NATKO, 

Appellant, 

vs. 

THE STATE OF NEVADA, 

Respondent. 

No. 73048-COA 

FR C n a l

DEC 0 2018 

ELIZABETH A. BROWN 

CLEXoir......c.;;;;ME COURT 

134 Nev., Advance Opinion 103 

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEVADA 

Appeal from a judgment of conviction, pur'siLian't go celury 

verdict, of exploitation of a vulnerable person and theft. Eighth Judicial 

District Court, Clark County; William D. Kephart, Judge. 

Reversed and remanded. 

Foley & Oakes, PC, and Daniel T. Foley, Las Vegas, 

for Appellant. 

Adam Paul Laxalt, Attorney General, Carson City; Steven B. Wolfson, 

District Attorney, Jay P. Raman, Chief Deputy District Attorney, and 

Charles Thoman, Deputy District Attorney, Clark County, 

for Respondent. 

BEFORE SILVER, C.J., TAO and GIBBONS, JJ. 

OPINION 

By the Court, SILVER, C.J.: 

In this appeal, we consider whether the district court erred by 

instructing a jury, in a criminal case for exploitation of a vulnerable person 

and theft, that "[all person's status as a joint account holder does not by itself 

provide lawful authority to use or transfer anotherrsl assets for their own 

benefit." We conclude this instruction is inconsistent with NRS 100.085, 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 19478 (8 --iO9(p20 
and it does not accurately and completely reflect the reasoning and 

conclusion in Walch v. State, 112 Nev. 25, 909 P.2d 1184 (1996). 

Accordingly, we hold the jury instruction was a misstatement of law, and it 

was error to give the instruction. Because the State has failed to 

demonstrate the error was harmless, we reverse. 

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 

Helen Natko and• Delford Mencarelli began dating in 1982, a 

year or two after their respective spouses passed away. During a visit to 

Pennsylvania in May 2012, Mencarelli was hospitalized for low blood sugar, 

a complication of his diabetes. After the couple returned to their shared 

home in Las Vegas, Natko and Mencarelli gave each other durable power of 

attorney, purportedly so that Natko could help care for Mencarelli. Four 

days later, Mencarelli added Natko as a joint account holder on his Las 

Vegas credit union account. In July 2013, Natko withdrew $195,000 from 

the couple's joint bank account and temporarily placed it into her personal 

bank account. She returned the money to the couple's joint account within 

the month. Mencarelli died approximately two years later. 

Nine months after Mencarelli's death, the State charged Natko 

with exploitation of a vulnerable person and theft based on the act of 

withdrawing the money from the joint account in 2013. 1At trial, the State 

1The dissent speculates that Mencarelli "may" have lacked mental 

capacity at the time the joint bank account was created a year prior, thus 

voiding the joint account and removing any legal claim Natko may have had 

to the funds within the account This is mere speculation, and no evidence 

exists of this in our record. Tellingly, the State's information charged Natko 

with "willfully, unlawfully and feloniously" exploiting a vulnerable person 

and theft on July 5, 2013, by withdrawing the $195,000 from a bank account 

on which she was listed as a joint tenant. The withdrawal of money 

occurred a full year after the date from which she and Mencarelli set up the 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 
proposed jury instruction 18, which stated: "A person's status as a joint 

account holder does not by itself provide lawful authority to use or transfer 

anotherrs] assets for their own benefit." This language was taken nearly 

verbatim from Walch. Natko objected to the instruction, arguing it was 

inaccurate under the current version of NRS 100.085, which was amended 

in 1995. The district court, relying on Walch, ultimately gave the 

instruction. A jury found Natko guilty on both counts, 2and the district 

court sentenced her to a suspended aggregate prison term of 36 to 144 

months and placed her on probation. This appeal follows. 

ANALYSIS 

Natko argues that jury instruction 18 was a misstatement of 

law because it directly contradicts NRS 100.085, and the district court 

incorrectly relied on Walch in giving the instruction because Walch was 

decided under a prior version of NRS 100.085. The State counters that jury 

instruction 18 was a correct statement of law that was not overruled by the 

amendments to NRS 100.085 and, therefore, the district court properly 

relied on Walch. 

"District courts have broad discretion to settle jury 

instructions." Cortinas v. State, 124 Nev. 1013, 1019, 195 P.3d 315, 319 

(2008). "While we normally review the decision to [give or] refuse a jury 

instruction for an abuse of that discretion or judicial error, we review de 

novo whether a particular instruction, such as the one at issue in this case, 

joint bank account. Significantly, too, the State never charged Natko with 

exploitation or fraud for any actions prior to the date of the withdrawal of 

funds from the joint bank account. 

2The judgment of conviction erroneously states Natko was convicted 

pursuant to a guilty plea. 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 71)1 

3 
comprises a correct statement of the law." Id. Further, whether jury 

instruction 18 was an accurate statement of the law involves statutory 

interpretation, which we also review de novo. See Bigpond v. State, 128 

Nev. 108, 114, 270 P.3d 1244, 1248 (2012). When interpreting a statute, we 

first examine the statute's plain meaning. Id. "[I]f the statute is clear, we 

do not look beyond the statute's plain language." Sheriff v. Witzenburg, 122 

Nev. 1056, 1061, 145 P.3d 1002, 1005 (2006). 

NRS 100.085 was amended to its current version in 1995. 31995 

Nev. Stat., ch. 426, § 1, at 1054-55. NRS 100.085(1) provides, in relevant 

part: "If an account is intended to be held in joint tenancy, the account or 

proceeds from the account are owned by the persons named, and may be 

paid or delivered to any of them • . . ." (Emphasis added.) And, as relevant 

to this appeal, NRS 100.085(4) provides that, "[f]or the purposes of this 

section, unless a depositor specifically provides otherwise, the use by the 

depositor of [joint account] . . . in designating the ownership of an account 

indicates the intent of the depositor that the account be held in joint 

tenancy." When read together, the plain language of NRS 100.085(1) and 

(4) establishes a presumption that a person's status as a joint account holder 

3We recognize that the opinion in Walch was issued in 1996. 

However, Wakh is not controlling here, because the defendant, Walch, was 

charged based on acts that were committed before the amendment of NRS 

100.085, and therefore, the Walch court would have considered the preamendment version of NRS 100.085 when deciding the appeal. See State v. 

Second Judicial Dist. Court (Pullin), 124 Nev. 564, 568, 188 P.3d 1079, 1081 

(2008) (stating, in the context of addressing sentencing penalties, "the law 

in effect at the time of the commission of a crime governs the prosecution of 

criminal offenses"). 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 
provides that person with ownership of, and authority to use, the funds in 

the joint account. 4 

In contrast to NRS 100.085, jury instruction 18 stated that a 

person's status as a joint account holder alone does not provide the 

authority to use another person's assets. Jury instruction 18 was 

inconsistent with NRS 100.085 because it implied Natko did not have lawful 

authority to use or transfer the funds in the joint account for her own 

benefit. The State argues that the instruction was nevertheless a correct 

statement of the law under Watch. We disagree. 

In Wakh, the elderly victim gave the defendant, Walch, durable 

power of attorney that "expressly precluded Walch from using [the victim's] 

assets for Walch's own legal obligations, including but not limited to support 

of the agent's dependents." 112 Nev. at 27, 909 P.2d at 1185 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Walch thereafter opened two joint bank accounts 

with the victim's money that named Walch and the victim as joint account 

holders, and Walch wrote checks from those accounts for her personal use. 

4Because the statute is clear, we need not look to the legislative 

history to determine the meaning of the statute. See Witzenburg, 122 Nev. 

at 1061, 145 P.3d at 1005. Nevertheless, we note that the legislative history 

expressly demonstrates that the 1995 amendments to NRS 100.085 were 

specifically intended to clarify that each party on a joint account has a right 

to funds in the account and the right of survivorship to funds in the account 

upon the death of one of the account holders. See Hearing on S.B. 424 Before 

the Assembly Judiciary Comm., 68th Leg. (Nev., June 15, 1995) (John 

Sande, representing the Nevada Bankers Association, testified that "if it is 

held as a joint tenancy, as that is defined in [NRS 100.085] under Subsection 

4. . . either party, or any party that [is] on the account, has the right to 

those funds, that they will pass to the survivor on the death so that there's 

certainty," and, upon inquiry, he clarified that "[u]nder any interpretation," 

any party on a joint account, even if the parties do not live in the same house 

and have different families, "could take all the funds out of that account."). 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

5 

(0) 19475 
Id. at 27-29, 909 P.2d at 1185-86. On appeal, Walch cited to MRS 100.085(1) 

and argued that she could not be guilty of theft as a matter of law because, 

as a party on the joint accounts, she had lawful authority to withdraw any 

or all of the funds from those accounts and use them as she wished. Id. at 

30-31, 909 P.2d at 1187-88. The supreme court rejected this argument, 

concluding that "Walch's mere status as a party to the joint accounts did 

not provide her with lawful authority to use [the victim's] assets for her own 

benefit and therefore did not preclude her conviction for theft." Id. at 33, 

909 P.2d at 1189. This conclusion was based on the observation that the 

jury "could have concluded that Walch placed [the victim's] funds into the 

two accounts with the intention of withdrawing them later for her own 

benefit." Id. The court reasoned that "[i]f so, Walch's felonious intent and 

actions commenced before such monies reached the two accounts, and her 

status as a joint legal owner of the account funds would not shield her from 

culpability for theft of funds subsequently withdrawn and misused." Id. 

In Walch, therefore, the supreme court did not conclude that 

NRS 100.085 does not create a presumption of ownership by a joint account 

holder of the funds in a joint account. Rather, Walch is best understood to 

stand for the proposition that despite the presumption of ownership 

established by MRS 100.085, a person named on a joint account can still be, 

under some circumstances, convicted of theft for withdrawing and/or 

misusing funds from the joint account. The State is correct that this aspect 

of Walch was not impacted by the 1995 amendments to NRS 100.085. This 

is so because there is nothing in NRS 100.085 that precludes a joint account 

holder from being convicted of theft for the withdrawal and/or misuse of 

funds in the joint account. However, based on the reasoning in Walch, in 

order to convict a joint account holder of theft based on the withdrawal 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

6 

(0) 19473 
1.0) I 9475 

and/or misuse of funds from a joint account, the State must allege and 

establish that the criminal intent arose prior to the funds being deposited 

into the joint account. 

Because jury instruction 18 broadly stated: "A person's status 

as a joint account holder does not by itself provide lawful authority to use 

or transfer another[s] assets for their own benefit," it did not accurately 

reflect the reasoning and conclusions in Walch and was therefore 

incomplete. Notably, the instruction did not identify the circumstances 

under which a person named as a party on a joint account could be convicted 

of theft based on withdrawal and/or misuse of funds from the joint account. 5 

Accordingly, we conclude jury instruction 18 was not a correct statement of 

the law and it was error to give the instruction. 

Because Natko objected to the use of jury instruction 18, we 

review the error under the harmless error standard. See Barnier u. State, 

119 Nev. 129, 132, 67 P.3d 320, 322 (2003). "[T]he State bears the burden 

of proving that the error was harmless." Polk v. State, 126 Nev. 180, 183 

n.2, 233 P.3d 357, 359 n.2 (2010). 6To meet this burden, it may be necessary 

5A jury instruction that accurately reflects the reasoning and 

conclusions in Walch may have stated the following: A person's status as a 

joint legal owner of account funds does not shield the person from 

culpability for the taking of those funds if the State can demonstrate that 

the person's criminal intent and actions commenced before the money was 

placed into the joint account. 

6The dissent argues that the lack of trial transcripts in the record 

demands an affirmance. However, because the State failed to argue 

harmless error after Natko alleged reversible error by the district court, the 

State waived its argument that harmless error applies. Polk, 126 Nev. at 

183 n.2, 233 P.3d at 359 n.2 ("[A respondent] who fails to include and 

properly argue a contention in the [respondent's] brief takes the risk that 

the court will view the contention as forfeited." (internal quotations and 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

7 
for the State to file a respondent's appendix that includes "those documents 

necessary to rebut appellant's position on appeal which are not already 

included in appellant's appendix." NRAP 30(b)(4). Reversal will be 

warranted unless the State can show "it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt 

that a rational jury would have found the defendant guilty absent the error." 

Nay v. State, 123 Nev. 326, 334, 167 P.3d 430, 435 (2007) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). 

The State fails to argue on appeal, let alone demonstrate from 

the record, that the error is harmless. A joint appendix was not filed in this 

appeal and, although recognizing Natko did not provide this court with a 

copy of the trial transcripts, the State did not file a respondent's appendix 

and provide the trial transcripts to this court. Nothing in the record before 

this court indicates that Mencarelli or Natko specifically provided that they 

did not intend to hold the joint account in joint tenancy. Therefore, jury 

instruction 18 was not a correct statement of the law, and it improperly 

implied to the jury that Natko did not have lawful authority to use and/or 

withdraw the funds in the joint account. The State alleged Natko 

committed the crimes of exploitation of a vulnerable person and theft based 

on the act of withdrawing money from Natko and Mencarelli's joint account. 

Thus, without the trial transcripts, or anything to show the facts are like 

those in Walch, we cannot say that the error was harmless. Because the 

State has failed to meet its burden and demonstrate the error is harmless, 

we conclude the error warrants reversal. 

citation omitted)). And, because the jury instruction given here was 

incomplete, as a matter of law, we are constrained to reverse under the 

circumstances of this case. See Cortinas, 124 Nev. at 1019, 1023-27, 195 

P.3d at 319, 322-24 (reviewing de novo whether a jury instruction is a 

correct statement of law and addressing the effect of instructional errors). 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

8 

(D1 1947B 
CONCLUSION 

The district court erred by giving jury instruction 18 because it 

was not a correct statement of the law. The instruction was inconsistent 

with NRS 100.085 because it broadly stated that a person's status as a joint 

account holder did not give her the authority to use another's assets within 

the joint account for her own benefit. Further, the instruction did not 

accurately reflect the reasoning and conclusions in Walch. Because the 

State has failed to meet its burden to demonstrate this error was harmless, 

we reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

Silver 

C.J. 

I concur: 

Gibbons 

J. 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 19475 

9 
TAO, J., dissenting: 

Before we can even get to the merits of Natko's arguments, 

there's a threshold problem: Natko was convicted following a jury trial, yet 

failed to supply copies of the trial transcript for us to review on appeal. We 

have partial transcripts of arguments of counsel surrounding the challenged 

jury instruction and some transcripts of post-trial motion argument. But 

we have no transcripts of the testimony of any trial witness reflecting the 

evidence admitted during the trial, no transcripts of the opening 

statements, and no transcripts of the closing arguments. 

Consequently, we have no idea—none at all—what transpired 

at trial, what evidence either party introduced, or what the jury's verdict 

was or was not based upon. Absent that, I don't know how we can possibly 

analyze what effect, if any at all, jury instruction 18 may have had upon 

Natko's trial. To me, that omission alone demands affirmance, because 

we're required to presume that any missing portions of the record support, 

not undermine, the jury's verdict. See Johnson v. State, 113 Nev. 772, 776, 

942 P.2d 167, 170 (1997) ("It is appellant's responsibility to make an 

adequate appellate record. We cannot properly consider matters not 

appearing in that record." (citation omitted)); Riggins v. State, 107 Nev. 178 

182, 808 P.2d 535, 538 (1991) (concluding that if materials are not included 

in the record on appeal, the missing materials "are presumed to support the 

district court's decision"), rev'd on other grounds by Riggins v. Nevada, 504 

U.S. 127 (1992). 

At the very least, I don't know what business we have reversing 

a felony jury verdict when the appellant has failed to properly apprise us of 

what actually happened below. Yet not only does the majority reverse a 

felony conviction without a transcript of the proceedings below, it does so 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) I4713 
via a broad legal ruling that upends a large swath of settled law. If the 

majority is correct, then NRS 100.085 isn't an obscure and rarely litigated 

statute unknown to much of the public, but rather one of the most sweeping 

laws ever enacted in Nevada—one that fundamentally undermines 

property law all the way back to the founding of this State. 

Where I think the majority errs is in conflating the concept of 

legal authority (or possession) over personal property with the concept of 

ownership (or title) of the property. MRS 100.085 deals with the authority 

of any named account holder to withdraw money from a joint account and 

the bank's liability for allowing such withdrawals. But the majority makes 

it reach much farther to say that the act of depositing money into a joint 

account actually changes who owns the money. I read MRS 100.085 as 

saying nothing of the sort, and for all of these reasons I respectfully dissent. 

I. 

This appeal arises from a criminal case that implicates defenses 

based upon principles of banking and property law. On appeal, Natko raises 

a single argument: she asserts that one jury instruction given at trial (jury 

instruction 18) was incorrect. 

Natko was convicted of two felony counts: one count of theft and 

one count of exploitation of a vulnerable person. The crux of the charges (as 

far as we can tell based upon arguments of counsel without a transcript of 

the trial) was that her name was added to a bank account first opened by 

her victim (her long-time boyfriend, according to the briefs), which changed 

it from a sole account to a joint one, and thereafter she withdrew large 

amounts of money from it at a time when the victim might not have been 

sufficiently lucid to agree to such financial decisions. 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 19475 

2 
Her defense was this (again, based upon arguments of counsel 

without an actual trial transcript): once the account became a joint account, 

all of the money in it became hers as a "joint tenant" to use any way she 

pleased, and she could not possibly be convicted of stealing what already 

belonged to her. At common law, joint tenants could not "steal" jointly 

owned property from each other. See 3 Wayne LaFave, Substantive 

Criminal Law § 19.4(c), at 106 (3d ed. 2018) ("The common law view of 

larceny is that [one joint tenant] cannot steal from the other co-owner."); 3 

Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law § 381, at 457-58 (15th ed. 1995) 

("When, under principles of property law, property is owned by cotenants so 

that each one is entitled to the possession of the property jointly or in 

common with the others, one tenant cannot be guilty of larceny when he 

takes possession of the property, even though he does so with the intent to 

exclude the others from its use and enjoyment. . . ."). 

The question is whether a "joint tenancy" existed here. For 

support, Natko contends that NRS 100.085 mandates that all money 

deposited in joint accounts, automatically and by operation of law, becomes 

the property of all account holders in joint tenancy. Consequently, she 

asserts the following jury instruction incorrectly describes the law: 

18. A person's status as a joint account holder does 

not by itself provide lawful authority to use or 

transfer another [sic] assets for their own benefit. 

But it seems to me to be Natko, not jury instruction 18, who 

misstates the law. Natko confuses the act of placing a name onto a bank 

account with legal ownership of the assets within the account. The creation 

of a bank account is governed by banking law. Ownership of personal 

property is governed by principles of property law. These are two entirely 

different things. 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

818 19478 3 
First, property law. Personal property may be owned by one 

person as a sole owner, or it may be owned by more than one person 

simultaneously. If owned by more than one person, the owners may be 

tenants in common, or they may be joint tenants. See NRS 111.063 (tenants 

in common in personal property); NRS 111.065(2) (joint tenants in personal 

property). The difference between the two is whether the ownership 

provides for a right of survivorship should one owner die during the tenancy. 

See Smolen v. Smolen, 114 Nev. 342, 344, 956 P.2d 128, 130 (1998) ("[T]he 

principal feature of the estate [is] the right of survivorship."). In Nevada, 

personal property may also take the form of community property when coowned by husband and wife, but because Natko and the victim were never 

married, that classification has no relevance here. 

The parties do not dispute (again, based solely upon arguments 

of counsel; we don't know what was proven at trial) that, before Natko's 

name was added to the existing account, every penny of the money 

deposited in it was the sole property of the victim. Natko agrees that she 

had no ownership interest in any of the money before her name was added 

to the account. However, she argues that once the account became joint, by 

operation of law everything in it became hers as a "joint tenant." 

Maybe. But maybe not. The answer depends upon other 

evidence introduced at trial. Adding Natko's name to the joint account gave 

her coequal access to the money in it. Did it also give her legal title and 

permission to withdraw and spend it as she pleased? Not necessarily. 

A foundational principle of property law is that possession is 

not the same thing as title. Legal title to personal property, and factual 

possession of it, are different things that can be severed from each other. A 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 19478 ea 4 
person can legally possess property without owning it; it's the difference 

between a loan that conveys possession but not title, and a sale or gift that 

conveys both title and possession. It's why a house sitter doesn't become a 

legal owner of the home simply by residing overnight, and why a casino 

valet parking attendant doesn't own a car just by being handed the keys. 

Quite to the contrary, the civil tort of conversion occurs precisely when one 

person wrongfully exerts dominion over property that actually belongs to 

another. See Golden Rd. Motor Inn, Inc. v. Islam, 132 Nev. 476, 489, 376 

P.3d 151, 160 (2016). Further, the crime of embezzlement occurs when, with 

criminal intent, a bailee entrusted with only possession and not ownership 

of personal property uses it for the bailee's own benefit as if he were the 

owner. See NRS 205.300. 

A second foundational principle of property law is that title may 

transfer from one owner (a grantor) to another (a grantee) only if the grantor 

intended to convey such title. This has been settled law since 1865. See 

Hendricks v. Perkins, 98 Nev. 246, 250, 645 P.2d 973, 975 (1982) (examining 

whether evidence proved "the parties' intent to convey" an interest in the 

property); Cox v. Glenbrook Co., 78 Nev. 254, 264, 371 P.2d 647, 654 (1962) 

(in determining whether property was conveyed to another, "the intention 

of the parties [is] the object of inquiry"); Ruhling v. Hackett, 1 Nev. 360, 367 

(1865) (the extent of any transfer of property ownership is measured by "the 

intention of the parties"). Indeed, acting as if title to property has been 

transferred when the owner never intended to convey ownership is precisely 

when the tort of conversion and the crime of embezzlement occur. 

Natko's argument thus runs afoul of long-established principles 

of property law: she argues that, under NRS 100.085, merely because she 

possessed legal authority to withdraw money from the joint account, the 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

5 

(0) 19475 
money actually belonged to her as a matter of property law. But this lumps 

together possession and ownership and makes property change title without 

any evidence of intent by the owner to do so. 

What's more, she argues that the property not only changed 

title, but the form of the title changed from sole ownership to joint tenancy. 

Under Nevada law, a sole owner of property may convey a sole interest in 

the property to another simply by expressing an intent to do so and handing 

over possession. However, when the owner wishes to transmute the form 

of ownership from sole ownership into ownership by joint tenancy, Nevada 

law requires considerably more. At common law, creation of a joint tenancy 

required the "unities of interest, time, title, and possession," Smolen, 114 

Nev. at 344, 956 P.2d at 130, meaning an intent to convey both title as well 

as possession without severing them, along with the unity of "time," which 

means both must be conveyed at the same time in the same transaction. Id. 

Beyond that, NRS 111.065 adds a writing requirement that did not exist at 

common law This is so because the essence of joint tenancy is the "right of 

survivorship" that governs what happens when one of the joint tenants dies. 

Because many years or decades may go by before one tenant dies, Nevada 

law requires such transfers to be evidenced by "a written transfer, 

agreement, or instrument," so that the parties do not become embroiled in 

probate disputes years after the fact based upon oral statements whose 

contents may now be difficult to verify. See NRS 111.065(2). If any of these 

requirements is missing, then there is no proper conveyance in joint tenancy 

and what was conveyed was only either a tenancy in common or just sole 

ownership. Smolen, 114 Nev. at 344, 956 P.2d at 130. 

We have no evidence that any of these requirements for 

creating a joint tenancy were ever met. So, for NRS 100.085 to make a joint 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

6 

(0) 19475 
tenancy anyway, it must displace quite a lot of statutory and common law. 

But "[t]he Legislature is presumed not to intend to overturn longestablished principles of law when enacting a statute [and] this court 

strictly construes statutes in derogation of the common law." Shadow Wood 

HOA v. N.Y. Cmty. Bancorp. Inc., 132 Nev. 49, 59, 366 P.3d 1105, 1112 

(2016) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). To succeed, Natko 

needs NRS 100.085 to convey ownership of the victim's money to her 

whether or not the victim intended to give her a dime; whether or not he 

intended to convey title as well as possession; whether or not title and 

possession were conveyed in unity at the same time; whether or not anyone 

intended the account to be a tenancy in common instead of a joint tenancy; 

and whether or not any other formality of property law set forth in any other 

statute was followed. 

To overcome these gaps and fill in the missing pieces, Natko 

argues that the victim's intent and all of the unities have already been 

established simply because once the victim agreed to comply with NRS 

100.085(4) while constructively knowing what it said, he adopted and 

agreed to everything it imposed. In other words, by voluntarily agreeing to 

create a joint bank account under NRS 100.085, the victim constructively 

agreed to convey his money to Natko in joint tenancy because that's what 

the statute would make a joint account holder do. The way for the victim to 

avoid such a conveyance and keep the money for himself was not to deposit 

it into a joint bank account. 

But this brings us to the next problem, which is that Natko's 

approach also conflicts with principles of banking law. 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

( 0 I I 947.13 7 
IlL 

Bank accounts may be in the name of a sole account holder or 

they may be in the name of joint account holders. Under traditional 

principles of banking law, the form of the account, and the name it may 

bear, may have little to do with the beneficial ownership of' anything 

deposited into the account. By way of example, trust accounts—such as an 

attorney trust account holding money for clients, or any other type of trust 

account used by agents or fiduciaries to hold money on behalf of principals—

are classic examples of bank accounts that may bear the name of one person 

or entity but actually hold money beneficially owned by other people whose 

names appear nowhere on the accounts. Indeed, the body of federal crimes 

commonly known as "money laundering" punishes the act of attempting to 

conceal ownership of ill-gotten money by depositing it into bank accounts in 

the names of others while secretly retaining control of it. See United States 

v. Davis, 226 F.3d 346, 357 (5th Cir. 2000); United States v. Rutgard, 116 

F.3d 1270, 1292 (9th Cir. 1997). 

The point is that the name on an account may have little to do 

with who owns what's in it. Who actually owns the money in an account, 

both before and after it is deposited, is a question for the depositors and 

account holders to handle between themselves: "Id enerally, the respective 

rights of the parties to a joint bank account are determined by the rules of 

contract law, and the intent of the parties with respect to the joint savings 

account is controlling." Anderson v. Iowa Dep't of Human Servs., 368 

N.W.2d 104, 109 (Iowa 1985). See Brasel v. Estate of Harp, 877 S.W.2d 923, 

925 (Ark. 1994) (stating that "each owner's right to the funds may depend 

upon an agreement between them as to their ownership rights"); see 

generally In re Estate of Greer, 128 P.3d 1104, 1107 (Okla. Civ. App. 2005) 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

WI 

8 

194IB 
tO) 1947B 

(stating that "actual ownership of the funds, as opposed to the right of 

possession, is a question of intent"). 

Natko argues otherwise, but until now it's been long established 

that depositing money into a "joint account" does not automatically 

constitute a conveyance of money from the depositor to other account 

holders, either as sole owners or as joint tenants. "[A] person who deposits 

funds in a multiple-party account normally does not intend to make an 

irrevocable gift of all or any part of the funds represented by the deposit. 

Rather, he usually intends no present change of beneficial ownership." 

Deutsch Larrimore & Famish, P.C., v. Johnson, 848 A.2d 137, 143 (Pa. 

2004). Thus, money deposited in a joint bank account does not belong to 

other account holders absent "clear and convincing evidence" that the 

depositing party intended to confer such ownership. Enright v. Lehmann, 

735 N.W.2d 326, 331 (Minn. 2007). Some states have held that the creation 

of a joint account established a rebuttable presumption of joint ownership 

(notably not a conclusive or irrebuttable one), and at one time Nevada 

employed such a presumption. See Sly v. Barnett, 97 Nev. 587, 589, 637 

P.2d 527, 528 (1981). Courts in those states recognized that an irrebuttable 

presumption of the kind Natko proposes would create a "hardship . . on 

parties having 'convenience' accounts, as where an incapacitated person 

might have a joint account for the sole purpose of financial management." 

Id. (Which, by the way, in view of the victim's alleged lack of mental 

capacity might be just what was intended here). 

But it is simply not true that depositing money into a bank 

account by itself constitutes a transfer of ownership in the money to 

someone else just because their name also happens to be on the account, 

with no consideration of any evidence to the contrary no matter how weighty 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

9 
or persuasive that evidence might be, and no opportunity for ownership to 

be disputed or challenged by any other party. See id; see also South v. 

Smith, 934 S.W.2d 503,507 (Ark. 1996) ("[E]ven though one has a right to 

withdraw funds from a joint bank account, a joint tenant may not, by 

withdrawing funds in a joint tenancy, acquire ownership to the exclusion of 

the other joint tenant. . . ." (citation omitted)). Quite the opposite: a party 

who merely has his name on a joint account and proves nothing more "fail [s] 

to establish his ownership of all the funds in the joint accounts." Marcucci 

v. Hardy, 65 F.3d 986, 992 (1st Cir. 1995). Indeed, if one owner of a joint 

bank account tries to withdraw more from the joint account than he owns 

or is entitled to, the other account holders may sue him for the tort of 

conversion because he has taken something that was not his to take. 

Newbro v. Freed, 409 F. Supp. 2d 386, 395 (S.D.N.Y. 2006); see Matter of 

Kleinberg v. Heller, 345 N.E.2d 592 (N.Y. 1976); see also Kettler v. Sec. Nat'l 

Bank, 805 N.W.2d 817, 823 (Iowa Ct. App. 2011) (stating that "a cotenant 

may not withdraw from the account in excess of his interest; if he has done 

so, he is liable to the other joint tenant for the excess so withdrawn" 

(quotation and citation omitted)); South, 934 S.W.2d at 507 ("[W]hen one 

[joint account holder] withdraws in excess of his moiety, he is liable to the 

other joint tenant for the excess withdrawn."). 

The Nevada Supreme Court long ago rejected the very 

argument advanced here, in which "plaintiff contends that by depositing the 

money in the joint account defendant made a valid, completed gift to the 

plaintiff." Weeks v. Weeks, 72 Nev. 268, 275, 302 P.2d 750, 753 (1956). It 

rejected this argument summarily, pointedly noting that no authority 

existed for this proposition but "literally hundreds of cases" stood for the 

opposite. Id. at 276, 302 P.2d at 754; see Edmonds v. Perry, 62 Nev. 41, 140 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 1917B 10 
P.2d 566 (1943) (under prior statute, merely because a bank account is joint 

does not mean that it is intended to be a joint tenancy with right of 

survivorship). Since then, the Nevada Supreme Court's position has 

consistently remained the same right through 2016: money retains its 

original ownership even when deposited into a joint account, and 

consequently "[a] judgment creditor may garnish only a debtor's funds that 

are held in a joint bank account, not the funds in the account owned by the 

nondebtor." Brooksby v. Nev. State Bank, 129 Nev. 771, 772, 312 P.3d 501 

(2013) This is simply because "joint bank account funds [may] truly belong 

to someone other than the judgment debtor." Id. at 773, 312 P.3d at 502; 

see Brooks v. Mejia, 2016 WL 197396, Docket No. 67794 (Order of 

Affirmance, Jan. 14, 2016) (concluding that creditor could not garnish 

account to pay off debt owed by other account holder because appellant 

successfully "demonstrated that the funds in the bank account belonged to 

her alone"). In other words, even when funds from different sources are 

commingled in a joint bank account, the ownership of the funds does not 

automatically change merely by being deposited in the joint account. 

Rather, even when commingled, the funds retain their original ownership 

status at least so long as ownership can be traced. In re Christensen, 122 

Nev. 1309, 1323, 149 P.3d 40, 49 (2006) (ownership over funds stays 

unchanged even when commingled with other funds "so long as tracing is 

possible"). 

None of these cases makes any sense (and all would have to be 

overruled) if Natko is correct about what NRS 100.085 does. These cases 

make sense only if Natko is wrong. Indeed, they show, conclusively, that 

she is. 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 1947B 11 
COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

What a joint bank account does is give every account holder 

some right of access to the money. But access is not the same thing as 

ownership. "The joint owner of a bank account. . . has the right to 

withdraw all of the funds, thereby totally divesting the other joint owner of 

all interest. [But] the creator of a joint account has a cause of action against 

the other owner for having completely withdrawn the funds, upon 

establishing that in creating the account the creator did not intend to 

transfer [all of the funds]." In re Rauh, 164 B.R. 419, 424 (Bank. Ct. D. 

Mass. 1994); see Kettler, 805 N.W.2d at 823; South, 934 S.W.2d at 507. As 

another court described a virtually identical statute to NRS 100.085: 

The intent of [the statute] is to protect a financial 

institution from liability for distributing funds from 

a multiple-party account to any of the individual 

account holders. However, the relationship 

between a banking institution and the holders of a 

joint account does not in any manner shape the 

relationship between the account holders 

themselves. As such, while [one account holder] 

was authorized to withdraw the funds, she was not 

authorized to use the funds for her personal benefit. 

Sandler v. Jaffe, 913 So. 2d 1205, 1207 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2005). See 

Erhardt v. Leonard, 657 P.2d 494, 497 (Idaho Ct. App. 1983) (noting that 

"[a] ccount contracts . . . define the power of withdrawal held by each party 

to the account, as a means of protecting the financial institution," but that 

they do not affect the actual ownership of the funds therein, which is 

determined by looking to the intent of the depositor). 

IV. 

Natko argues that she is right and all of this is wrong because 

NRS 100.085 overturned it all in 1995, when the statute was last amended; 

ever since then, none of these statutes or common law principles has applied 

to any money held in joint bank accounts. 

12 

(0) 19.0B 
If she is correct, that raises an interesting question: what 

happened to money that was deposited into joint bank accounts before 1995 

and remained there after the amended statute took effect? Natko concedes 

that, prior to 1995, money deposited into a joint account was not necessarily 

held in joint tenancy, agreeing that the Nevada Supreme Court said exactly 

that in Starr v. Rousselet, 110 Nev.. 706, 712, 877 P.2d 525, 530 (1994) 

(holding that "a simple reference to a 'joint' account . . . will not suffice for 

purposes of establishing a joint tenancy"). She argues, though, that money 

deposited into any joint account became automatically held in joint tenancy 

beginning in 1995 when the last amendment to NRS 100.085 took effect, 

thereby overruling Starr at least sub silentio. 

Would this not be a governmental seizure of private property 

and conveyance to others of all money held in joint bank accounts at the 

moment the 1995 amendments took effect—possibly tens of millions of 

dollars of it across Nevada? Nev. Const. art. 1, § 8(5) stipulates that In] o 

person shall be deprived of. . . property, without due process of law," and 

art. 1, § 22 provides that " [pi ublic use shall not include the direct or indirect 

transfer of any interest in property taken in an eminent domain proceeding 

from one private party to another private party." Yet Natko seems to read 

the 1995 amendments as accomplishing something very much along those 

dangerous lines taking all money deposited in any joint account before 1995 

away from any original sole owner and giving it away in joint tenancy 

whether the owner wanted to or not. 

Furthermore, it seems to me that this interpretation creates 

serious problems with the Contract Clause of the Nevada Constitution, 

which prohibits any "law impairing the obligation of contracts." Nev. Const. 

art. 1, § 15. Following Natko's reasoning, any contract governing the 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

13 

(0) 1947B 
ownership of money held in a joint account before 1995—say, a 1994 

contract that provided that money held in a joint account was expressly not 

held in joint tenancy between the parties—would have been voided, ex post 

facto, by the 1995 amendment to NRS 100.085. That would make NRS 

100.085 unconstitutional. But we're not supposed to read statutes that way; 

to the contrary, "when a statute may be given conflicting interpretations, 

one rendering it constitutional, and the other unconstitutional, the 

constitutional interpretation is favored." State v. Kopp, 118 Nev. 199, 203, 

43 P.3d 340, 342-43 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Central to the concept of liberty in our constitutional republic 

is the right to freely convey or dispose of private property as the owner, not 

the government, sees fit. Indeed, the right to own real and personal 

property free from government interference is the individual right most 

frequently mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. See U.S. Const. amend. III 

(protecting "any house"); amend. IV (protecting "houses" from unreasonable 

search and seizure); amend. V (prohibiting deprivation of life, liberty, or 

"property" without due process of law, and preventing "private property" 

from being taken without just compensation); amend. XIV (prohibiting 

deprivation of life, liberty, or "property" without due process of law). 

Government ownership and control of property is the hallmark of 

communist societies, not free ones. Yet that comes perilously close to what 

Natko seems to propose here: that the Legislature can simply take one's 

private property and give it to someone else (or at least make the original 

owner share it with others against his will) by enacting a statute like NRS 

100.085. 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 19478 14 
V. 

Natko argues that this is what NRS 100.085 demands. But the 

statute doesn't really say what she claims it does. 

When reviewing statutes, we start with the statutory language 

and give it the meaning most reasonably supported by the text, structure, 

and context. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The 

Interpretation of Legal Texts 170, 174 (2012). If one is an "intentionalist" or 

"purposivist," one might also peek at the legislative history or announced 

purpose lurking behind a statute. But neither the stated purpose nor 

anything in the legislative history can ever override the plain meaning 

framed by the statute's own language and structure, because the language 

and structure were all that the Legislature voted on and all that the 

Governor signed. 

As a starting point, the structure of NRS 100.085 tells us that 

it isn't the general all-purpose banking and property law statute that Natko 

says it is. Quite to the contrary, and quite notably, the general banking 

statute is located very far away, in NRS Chapter 657. The personal 

property statute is also located elsewhere, in NRS Chapter 111. 

In contrast, NRS 100.085 is located within Chapter 100, a 

chapter directed specifically at "Special Relations of Debtor and Creditor," 

and NRS 100.085 is further located adjacent to a series of subchapters titled 

"Marshaling of Assets," "Suretyship," and "Transfer of Creditor's Rights." 

The statute is immediately preceded by a series of other statutes addressing 

"Agreements between principals and sureties for joint control of assets" 

(NRS 100.060); "Deposits authorized in lieu of cash payment or surety bond 

for protection of State" (NRS 100.065); and "Creditor's rights transferable 

without consent of debtor" (NRS 100.075). The statute immediately 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 19478 15 
following NRS 100.085 is NRS 100.091, titled "Impound account required 

under loan secured by real property . . . ." 

What does this tell us? That NRS 100.085 doesn't govern how 

bank accounts are set up for all purposes, nor does it supplant centuries of 

common law (along with several current statutes) to dictate who owns 

personal property; this chapter would be a pretty incongruous place to bury 

a statute that revolutionary. Rather, being placed here tells us that it's 

much narrower and is directed toward problems that may arise in 

debtor/creditor relations. As the Nevada Supreme Court has described the 

statute, "[t]he effect of NRS 100.085(1) is to protect a depository, such as a 

bank, from liability if it pays money out to a joint tenant of an account." 

Walch v. State, 112 Nev. 25, 31, 909 P.2d 1184, 1188 (1996). 

Structure aside, here are what the plain words of the statute 

say. Under NRS 100.085(1) and (3), any "deposit made in the name of [two 

or more persons] and intended to be paid or delivered to any one of them" is 

the property of all named persons that can be withdrawn by any account 

holder, and the bank will suffer no liability if the withdrawal turns out to 

have been against the wishes of other account holders. NRS 100.085(4) 

specifically states that, "ffl or purposes of this section," the bank may treat 

a "deposit" into a joint account as if it were intended in joint tenancy so long 

as the deposit was made in the name of one or more persons into the joint 

account, unless the "depositor" indicates otherwise. 

Take these words at face value, and notice what they don't say: 

they don't say that all joint bank accounts create joint tenancies all the time. 

Here's why. There are three ways that money can end up in a joint account: 

it can be deposited in a sole account to which more names are added later 

to make it joint; it can be deposited into a joint account in the name of only 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

16 
COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

one account holder; or it can be deposited into a joint account in the names 

of multiple account holders. Yet NRS 100.085 addresses only one of these 

(the third). The plain words of NRS 100.085 state that the entire statute 

comes into play only when a joint account has already been established and 

a "deposit [is] made in the name of the depositor and one or more other 

persons." See NRS 100.085(1) ("When a deposit has been made in the name 

of the depositor and one or more other persons . . . ."); 100.085(3) ("When a 

deposit has been made in the name of the depositor and one or more other 

persons . . . ."). 

By its plain terms, NRS 100.085 isn't triggered by the initial 

creation of a joint account, but rather only by the making of certain kinds 

of deposits into one already established. That's the very title of the statute: 

"Deposits in names of two or more persons" (and not, by contrast, "joint bank 

accounts" or "joint tenancies"). Even NRS 100.085(4), the section that refers 

to joint tenancies (and upon which Natko most obviously hangs her hat), is 

triggered only by the actions of a "depositor" who makes the kind of deposit 

outlined in sections (1) and (3). In fact, here is the language from (4) that 

forms the backbone of Natko's entire argument: 

4. For the purposes of this section, unless a 

depositor specifically provides otherwise, the use by 

the depositor of any of the following words or terms 

in designating the ownership of an account 

indicates the intent of the depositor that the 

account be held in joint tenancy. . . . (emphasis 

added). 

On their face, these words don't apply to all joint bank accounts from 

inception but only when activated by the actions of a "depositor" following 

a deposit pursuant to (1) or (3). This would not be Natko if she never 

deposited any of her own money into the account herself in the specific 

manner provided by (1) or (3) (which she seems to concede); Natko couldn't 

(0) 194M 17 
trigger this statute herself as a mere account holder who never made a 

deposit in the name of more than one person. Did the victim ever trigger 

section (4)? That depends on evidence we don't have before us. 

But let's keep going through the text. What happens with the 

other two situations? Say no such deposits are made in the names of 

multiple account holders. Or, say deposits were made only back when the 

account was a sole account before it became joint. Notably, neither of these 

is covered by NRS 100.085(1), (3), or (4). The statute omits bank accounts 

that began as sole accounts and then were later converted into joint ones 

without any more deposits having been made. It also omits bank accounts 

that are joint, but in which no deposits have yet been made "in the name of 

the depositor and one or more other persons." These seem like rather 

glaring omissions, omissions that may potentially encompass thousands of 

joint accounts, weirdly making some bank accounts into joint tenancies but 

leaving out quite a lot of them. 

So if NRS 100.085 creates joint tenancies at all (which I doubt, 

but let's assume it does for the moment), it does so only sporadically and 

unpredictably: some joint bank accounts are joint tenancies because the 

right kind of "deposit" was made into them; some joint bank accounts are 

not joint tenancies right now but may become joint tenancies in the future 

upon the making of the right kind of "deposit"; and some joint bank accounts 

may never become joint tenancies if the right kind of "deposit" is never 

made. That's a pretty odd scheme. 

More pointedly, oddity aside, those omissions matter very much 

to this appeal because at least one of the situations omitted may be precisely 

the situation at hand. Here, the victim originally deposited what had 

unequivocally been his own money into a sole account and Natko's name 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) I947B 18 
was added to the account only later. Absent a transcript it's not clear 

whether all of the money at stake was deposited before or after her name 

was added (your guess is as good as mine on the precise sequence of events). 

If all of the victim's money was deposited while the account was still sole, 

then there was never a deposit into any joint account made in the name of 

more than one person. If so, this case would be precisely one of the 

situations that the express words of NRS 100.085 would not cover, and 

Natko's interpretation of the statute leaves her own appeal out. 

The strangeness of these results suggests something more 

broad: Natko is simply wrong about what the statute says. Why would a 

comprehensive banking and property statute omit so much and include so 

little? The answer must be: because NRS 100.085 is not the comprehensive 

banking and property statute that Natko argues it is. Rather, it is what 

Walch said it is: a statute that protects banks from liability. 112 Nev. at 31, 

909 P.2d at 1188. It applies in only extremely limited circumstances, and 

says nothing about whether the mere creation of a joint account universally 

gifts every dollar deposited to everyone else whose name happens to be on 

the account. NRS 100.085(4) simply protects banks from being sued by a 

decedent's estate for allowing a surviving account holder to withdraw funds 

after the depositor has died and the bank mistakenly thought that a right 

of survivorship was intended. That's all it does. NRS 100.085(4) insulates 

the bank by allowing it to assume for purposes of the withdrawal that there 

existed a right of survivorship; but whether there actually was one is a 

matter to be resolved in probate court as a question of property law. 

VI. 

If Natko wanted to prove that the money was hers, she could 

have done so by introducing evidence of the victim's intent to gift the money 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 19478 19 
to her, and perhaps the creating of the joint account may have constituted 

some evidence of such intent. But it did not become hers just by operation 

of law without any evidence that the victim intended a conveyance. 

Alternatively, perhaps one might say that the creation of a joint 

bank account established a prima facie rebuttable presumption that the 

money in it might be intended to be held in joint tenancy. See Sly, 97 Nev. 

at 589, 637 P.2d at 528. But even then the jury must consider any and all 

evidence of intent offered to rebut that presumption. 

Either way, NRS 100.085 is not the alpha and omega of the 

inquiry, with nothing more to ask. Accordingly, jury instruction 18 is more 

or less correct. It states that a person's status as a joint account holder by 

itself says nothing about who owns the money within the account or who 

can use it for their own personal benefit. That's manifestly true. Status as 

a joint account holder may constitute evidence pointing to ownership of the 

money. It may even create a rebuttable presumption of joint tenancy in 

some cases. But no legal conclusion can be drawn from the status itself, 

without anything more. 

Although jury instruction 18 is poorly worded (including an 

obvious grammar and punctuation error), in substance it's a reasonable 

approximation of the law. It probably would have been more accurate had 

it stated that "a person's status as a joint account holder does not by itself 

provide lawful authority to use or transfer the assets in the account for their 

own benefit," or perhaps "a person's status as a joint account holder does 

not by itself convey legal ownership of the funds deposited in the account." 

But it's not that far off the mark I do not think the district court erred in 

giving it, and therefore reversal is not warranted. 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

10) 1947D alZ;D: 20 
VII. 

Even if one could read NRS 100.085 as broadly as Natko 

proposes—to make the name on a bank account single-handedly preempt 

any other principle of property ownership—I would still affirm the 

conviction. Without a transcript of the trial, we have no idea what the State 

or Natko proved about the money in the bank account or the victim's 

capacity or intent to convey it. We also don't know whether jury instruction 

18 related to the evidence introduced at trial or whether it may have been 

entirely superfluous and irrelevant to everything that happened below. 

Those gaps requires affirmance. 

But there's more. The central issue in this case appeared to be 

that, at the time the joint account was created, the victim may have lacked 

the mental capacity to make any serious financial decisions. If the trial 

evidence confirmed this (we can only guess), the jury could have concluded 

that the establishment of the joint bank account itself occurred without the 

victim's legal consent, and if so, then any withdrawal from it thereafter was 

either void or at least voidable due to the victim's lack of capacity. If the 

account itself and any deposit into it or withdrawals from it were legally 

void, then Natko never legally owned the money even under her theory of 

NRS 100.085, because the victim lacked the mental capacity to give it to 

her. A rational jury could have concluded that Natko committed theft and 

exploitation by inducing the victim to convert his money into joint tenancy 

and thereby gift it to her at a time when he had no legal capacity to agree, 

and I would affirm on this basis as well as for the other reasons set forth 

herein. 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

(0) 1c47R 21 
VHI. 

For all of these reasons, I respectfully dissent. At common law, 

joint tenants could not steal from each other. But joint bank account holders 

might be able to, because not every joint bank account holder is necessarily 

a joint tenant to every penny ever deposited in the account by anyone at any 

time. In the absence of a trial transcript we simply do not know whether 

Natko was a joint tenant to the money deposited into the account, or 

whether she might have been a joint account holder without being a joint 

tenant. Consequently, we do not know whether any error occurred, and I 

would affirm the conviction. 

leAtre J. 

Tao 

COURT OF APPEALS 

OF 

NEVADA 

PP 1947E 412To 22