Opinion ID: 2388141
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Bad act evidenceMobert conspiracy

Text: At trial, in an attempt to establish a possible motive linking Linda to Palensky's murder, the State introduced evidence of a prior uncharged conspiracy involving the Fieldses and Roy Mobert. Mobert and the Fieldses were friends who later developed a business partnership when Mobert assigned power of attorney to Linda. Mobert was elderly and in poor health, and Linda sold his property for him and arranged other affairs with the power of attorney. The business relationship soon soured, and the Fieldses filed a civil suit against Mobert, who filed a counterclaim. Mobert and the Fieldses settled this suit in 2000. Mobert died of natural causes in 2007, when Linda no longer held rights of survivorship or any other potential for pecuniary gain from Mobert. At a hearing on pretrial motions in the instant case, the State put on Gregory Corn as a witness. Corn was Mobert's attorney in the civil suit between Mobert and the Fieldses, wherein the Fieldses claimed that Mobert did not follow through on a promissory note to sell the Silver Dollar Bar to them. However, Corn was not Mobert's attorney when Linda obtained power of attorney for Mobert. Corn also wrote a will for Mobert, revoking a prior will where Mobert left his entire estate to the Fieldses. The court ruled that the will could be admitted into evidence. At the same pretrial hearing, the State called James Pitts, a detective with the Elko County Sheriffs Department. Pitts worked an investigation involving John, Linda, and Billy Wellsa regular police informantafter Wells told the police that the Fieldses had solicited him to murder Mobert. In 2001, Pitts rigged Wells with a microphone and instructed him to meet with Linda and John about the possible murder for hire in an attempt to record Linda and John soliciting Wells to murder Mobert. The State sought to admit the recorded conversations under the motive exception to NRS 48.045 because it showed Linda's involvement in a prior murder solicitation. Linda objected to the admission of the tape on the basis of relevancy and prejudicial value. The court ruled that it would admit the tape at trial with a cautionary instruction. Before Corn testified at trial, the district court gave a limiting instruction pursuant to Tavares v. State [2] regarding the bad act testimony to be given by Corn and Pitts. At trial, Corn testified that Linda sold Mobert's bar in Jarbidge, Nevada, and that she took the proceeds from this sale, as well as proceeds from the sale of a house for Mobert, and opened a checking account in her own name. Linda then used this money to buy a vehicle for her daughter and to make improvements on the Silver Dollar Bar. On behalf of Mobert, Corn prepared a counterclaim against the Fieldses, claiming that Linda defrauded and misused the power of attorney against Mobert. Eventually, the civil suit settled. Also at trial, and after the district court gave the Tavares instruction, Larry Kidd, Jr., a police officer with the City of Elko, testified that Wells told him that Wells had been contracted by the Fieldses to kill Mobert in 2001. Kidd helped Pitts set up Wells's audio surveillance to record the meeting between Wells and the Fieldses. Pitts testified at trial that he and Kidd had wired Wells after Wells approached Kidd regarding the Fieldses alleged solicitation to murder Mobert. Pitts also authenticated the recording that was made from Wells's wired conversation with the Fieldses and identified the voices on that recording as belonging to John, Linda, and Wells. Thereafter, excerpts from the conversation were played. Kidd also testified that after the investigation and audio surveillance, no charges were filed against John or Linda. Kidd testified that the audio surveillance failed to provide substantial evidence. Wells was a paid informant for the narcotics task force, but there was no testimony regarding whether Wells was paid for this specific task. By introducing evidence of this uncharged prior conspiracy involving Mobert, the State sought to convey to the jury that with both Palensky and Mobert, the Fieldses, and Linda in particular, planned to take advantage of elderly men by obtaining a power of attorney, using that power of attorney to get money and assets, and then murdering the elderly men for their estates. After deliberating, the jury returned a guilty verdict. The district court sentenced Linda and entered a judgment of conviction. This appeal followed.