Opinion ID: 2335942
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Theories of imputed liability

Text: Nunnery claims that the district court erred by allowing the State to base the great-risk-of-death aggravator on a theory of accomplice liability because the State's notice of intent did not specify that theory. [16] Nunnery's claim is without merit. SCR 250(4)(c) states that a notice of intent to seek the death penalty must allege all aggravating circumstances which the state intends to prove and allege with specificity the facts on which the state will rely to prove each aggravating circumstance. This means that a defendant should not have to gather facts to deduce the State's theory for an aggravating circumstance; the supporting facts must be stated directly in the notice itself. Hidalgo v. Dist. Ct., 124 Nev. 330, 337, 184 P.3d 369, 375 (2008). In this case, the State's notice of intent alleged the great risk of death to more than one person aggravator based upon Nunnery's repeated firing of his weapon in a public place near numerous bystanders. The notice of evidence in aggravation described the same facts but stated that the gunfire by Nunnery and his codefendants created a great risk of death to more than one person. (Emphasis added.) Based partly on this added language, Nunnery objected to the use of accomplice liability to support the aggravator. The district court did not err in overruling Nunnery's objection because the State did not seek the great-risk-of-death aggravator based on a theory of imputed liability. The description of the course of action taken by Nunnery and his codefendants included in the notice of evidence in aggravation did not suggest a change of theory to accomplice liability for the aggravator; rather, the description elucidated the State's theory that Nunnery's course of conduct created a risk of death to multiple persons. Although the prosecutor argued in closing that the jury could consider the collected behavior of all four individuals, the prosecutor told the jury it could do so only because Nunnery was the group's leader and chose the time and location of the crime. The descriptions of the conduct of Nunnery's codefendants included in the notice of evidence in aggravation were not an attempt to base the aggravator solely on the codefendants' conduct but to show how Nunnery was responsible for directing a course of events that placed numerous innocent people at a high risk of death.