Opinion ID: 2335942
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome

Text: Nunnery sought to bolster his case for mitigation based on fetal alcohol syndrome through statements attributed to his cousin, Willie Nunnery, Jr. According to a defense investigator, Willie said that Nunnery's mother drank alcohol throughout her pregnancy and that Nunnery was small, wrinkly, and jittery when he was born, probably prematurely. The defense asked the district court to allow the defense investigator to testify to what Willie had told her when she interviewed him at a detention center in southern California. The district court refused to admit the evidence because it lacked credibility. Nunnery takes issue with that evidentiary decision. Although evidence which may or may not ordinarily be admissible under the rules of evidence, such as the hearsay testimony offered by Nunnery's defense investigator, may be admitted in the penalty phase of a capital trial, the evidence is not admissible if it is supported solely by impalpable or highly suspect evidence. Homick v. State, 108 Nev. 127, 138, 825 P.2d 600, 607 (1992). The record demonstrates that the evidence offered here is highly suspect: (1) neither of Nunnery's siblings remembered a cousin named Willie; (2) Willie's claim that he had lived with the family when Nunnery was born was unsupported; (3) Willie would have been only ten years old at the relevant time; (4) other witnesses who were adults at the time did not testify that Nunnery had any medical problems when he was born; (5) evidence at trial had proven that other stories about Nunnery's mother were untrue ( e.g., Nunnery and his siblings had been told their mother had been raped and killed when in fact she died from an overdose); and (6) the defense investigator had been unable to acquire Nunnery's birth records or any other documentation showing that Nunnery's mother drank or used drugs while pregnant or verifying that Nunnery had health problems when he was born. Based on the record and the district court's findings, we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion in excluding the defense investigator's proffered testimony. See Harte v. State, 116 Nev. 1054, 1069, 13 P.3d 420, 430 (2000).