Opinion ID: 2570062
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Legislative intent and the retroactivity of ameliorative criminal statutes in Nevada

Text: It is well established that under Nevada law, the proper penalty is the penalty in effect at the time of the commission of the offense and not the penalty in effect at the time of sentencing. Both the Legislature and this court have repeatedly evinced their commitment to this sound principle. Three examples of the Legislature's intent in this regard are the savings clause set forth in the Crimes and Punishments Act of 1911; [14] the general savings statutes adopted in 1967 as NRS 193.130, [15] 193.140, [16] and 193.150; [17] and the savings statute adopted in 1971 as NRS 193.075. [18] These statutes indicate a strong legislative intent that the law in effect at the time of the commission of a crime governs the prosecution of criminal offenses. Preliminarily, we acknowledge that the Legislature amended the general savings clause for felonies (NRS 193.130) in 1995, as part of a movement towards truth in sentencing [19] and in so doing included language that could be read to remove all category A felonies, as well as felonies where the applicable sentence is set forth elsewhere by specific statute, from the purview of NRS 193.130. NRS 193.130(1) now provides, Except when a person is convicted of a category A felony, and except as otherwise provided by specific statute, a person convicted of a felony shall be sentenced to a minimum term and a maximum term of imprisonment which must be within the limits prescribed by the applicable statute, unless the statute in force at the time of commission of the felony prescribed a different penalty. (Emphasis added.) While we recognize that the emphasized language appears to remove certain felonies from the purview of the general savings clause set forth in NRS 193.130, we nevertheless conclude that the general rule concerning retroactivity should apply to all criminally prohibited conduct because, as discussed above, such a result coheres with the Legislature's overall criminal statutory scheme, which has consistently favored such a rule. [20] We conclude that it would be incongruous to apply the general rule to the felonies not excluded under NRS 193.130, to all gross misdemeanors under NRS 193.140, and to all misdemeanors under NRS 193.150, but to exclude category A felonies, felonies where another specific statute sets forth the punishment, and sentence enhancements. There is simply no rational basis for applying the general rule in such a piecemeal fashion. Moreover, we conclude that this result is consonant with this court's prior jurisprudence, which we will now examine.