Opinion ID: 1135115
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Elvik's girlfriend's testimony

Text: At Elvik's trial, Elvik's girlfriend testified that Elvik made incriminating statements to her bearing on his involvement in the charged offense. Specifically, she testified that Elvik told her, in the days immediately preceding the offense, that he wanted to rob a store and get some money to buy a car so he could come back down. Elvik' s girlfriend also testified that Elvik stated, as they prepared to flee from the motel at which the police discovered Mr. Gibson's automobile, that [h]e wanted to shoot the police and leave in the car that [they] had come in. The district court permitted Elvik's girlfriend's testimony concerning the incriminating statements that Elvik allegedly made to her based on its determination that Elvik's statements were admissible to show that [Elvik] act[ed] in either motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident under [NRS] 48.045. Elvik argues, without authority, that the district court erred in permitting the testimony because it constituted inadmissible hearsay. Alternatively, Elvik argues that his statements were merely a display of false bravado, and should have been excluded because they were more prejudicial than probative. See NRS 48.035(1). NRS 51.035 provides, in pertinent part, that: Hearsay means a statement offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted unless: .... 3. The statement is offered against a party and is: (a) His own statement, in either his individual or representative capacity; .... Elvik's statements, as related by his girlfriend, were his own statements, and were offered against him. As such, the statements fell under NRS 51.035(3)(a) and, therefore, did not constitute hearsay. Moreover, NRS 51.105(1) provides that [a] statement of the declarant's then existing state of mind, emotion, sensation or physical condition, such as intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain and bodily health, is not inadmissible under the hearsay rule. Each of Elvik's statements at issue conveyed a then existing intent, plan, motive, [or] design. Accordingly, we conclude that, even if Elvik's statements did constitute hearsay, they would be admissible pursuant to NRS 51.105(1). We further conclude that the statements were relevant; they bear on the plausibility of Elvik's claim that he did not intend to kill Mr. Gibson for the purpose of stealing his automobile but, rather, shot Mr. Gibson because he believed that Mr. Gibson was drawing a handgun for the purpose of shooting Elvik. Elvik's self-defense argument is clearly inconsistent with his stated plan to commit a robbery as a means to obtain an automobile and to shoot police officers rather than surrendering and explaining that he fired in self-defense. See NRS 48.015 (`[R]elevant evidence' means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more or less probable than it would be without the evidence.). Finally, the district court concluded that the unfair prejudicial effect of Elvik's statements did not substantially outweigh their probative value. See NRS 48.035(1) The district court has discretion to admit or to exclude evidence after balancing the prejudicial effect against the probative value. Petrocelli v. State, 101 Nev. 46, 52, 692 P.2d 503, 508 (1985). The decision to admit evidence is within the sound discretion of the district court and will not be disturbed unless it is manifestly wrong. Wesley v. State, 112 Nev. 503, 510, 916 P.2d 793, 798 (1996). Based on the previously discussed relevance of Elvik's statements, we conclude that the district court was not manifestly wrong in admitting Elvik's girlfriend's testimony.