Opinion ID: 2636172
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Robbery conviction

Text: Cortinas next challenges his robbery conviction, claiming that the jury was improperly permitted to convict him of that offense without proof that he formed the intent to rob Kercher before she was killed. Reviewing this issue de novo, [66] we disagree and reaffirm our long-standing principle that the intent required for robbery need not be contemporaneous with the application of force or intimidation under NRS 200.380 to complete the elements of robbery. [67] Further, we reject Cortinas' claim that the evidence is insufficient to support his robbery conviction. Although in Nay we rejected the use of an afterthought robbery as a predicate felony for felony murder, citing Leonard v. State, we reiterated nevertheless that a robbery can occur after death. [68] Cortinas urges us to reexamine this holding. Although we decline this invitation, we take this opportunity to explain how existing law supports our prior decisions regarding robbery of a deceased victim. Under NRS 200.380, robbery is defined as the unlawful taking of personal property from the person of another, or in his presence, against his will, by means of force or violence or fear of injury, immediate or future, to his person or property. We explained in Leonard that under NRS 200.380, `it is irrelevant when the intent to steal the property is formed,' and it is not necessary that force or violence involved in the robbery `be committed with the specific intent to commit robbery.' [69] Accordingly, we held that [t]he jury need not be instructed that robbery requires [the] intent to take property from a living person. [70] Contrary to Cortinas' arguments, Leonard does not allow a person to begin and complete a robbery on a deceased victim. [71] Because a deceased person is no longer sensitive to force or coercion, the force or coercion needed to commit a robbery under NRS 200.380 must occur while the victim is alive. Reading Leonard for the opposite proposition would be absurd since it would criminalize as robbery the actions of a stranger who scavenges articles from an abandoned body. Indeed, by challenging his robbery conviction on grounds that the State failed to prove that he intended to rob the victim before killing her, Cortinas, in effect, portrays himself on appeal as the legal equivalent of a stranger in the desert, and therefore beyond the reach of the robbery statute. In doing so, however, Cortinas ignores a critical aspect of Leonard and his own caseboth Leonard and Cortinas used force to kill the robbery victim and then took advantage of the situation they had created through that use of force to take the victim's property. To the extent that any ambiguity exists, we reiterate that under Leonard the taking required for robbery may occur after the victim is dead so long as the defendant's use of force or coercionfor whatever purpose occurs while the victim was alive and the defendant took advantage of the terrifying situation he created to flee with the victim's property. [72] Leonard therefore does not permit a robbery to be perpetrated from beginning to end on a deceased victim. Consistent with our holding in Leonard, the jury in this case received an instruction stating that although acts of violence and intimidation preceded the actual taking of the property and may have been primarily intended for another purpose, it is enough to support the charge of robbery when a person takes the property by taking advantage of the terrifying situation he created. While this instruction rendered the timing of Cortinas' intent irrelevant to a determination of guilt, it required the jury to find that force or coercion preceded Kercher's death. Thus, this instruction comprises a correct statement of the law. Moreover, since the jury did not need to find that Cortinas specifically intended to rob Kercher before she was killed, [73] Cortinas' proposed instruction that would have required the jury to make that finding was properly denied. [74] Further, we reject Cortinas' challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support his robbery conviction. Viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, [75] there is sufficient evidence for a rational juror to infer that Cortinas took Kercher's property by taking advantage of the situation he created through the use of force. After strangling Kercher, Cortinas used her car to drive her body to Boulder City. During the same period, Cortinas fished through Kercher's purse and took, among other things, the $150 that he had paid her earlier that night. Cortinas also took Kercher's diamond earrings. It was Cortinas' use of force to kill Kercher that allowed him to then take her property. We therefore conclude that sufficient evidence supports Cortinas' robbery conviction. [76]