Opinion ID: 1451362
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: absence of aggravating circumstance equals absence of death-eligibility

Text: The Majority Opinion in this case tells us that [a]fter careful review of the evidence, we are convinced that it supports the jury's finding of each of these [five] aggravating [circumstances]. (Majority Opinion at 1365). My careful review tells me just the opposite  that there are no aggravating circumstances proven in this case. I will get rid of the easy ones first. The first aggravator found by the jury, is that the murder was committed by [Lane] who knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person. (Instruction No. 9). Neither the jury instructions nor the jury findings specify who the jury believed to have been at great risk of death at the time Lane murdered Dunham. The only person other than the victim who was nearby at the time of the murder was Lane's friend and codefendant, Millhouse. When Lane pulled out his gun, Millhouse ran away; it thus seems impossible for Millhouse to have been at any risk of death, for, by the time Lane got around to committing the murder, Millhouse was not there. The great-risk-of-death aggravator must fail in this case. The fourth aggravator found by the jury is that the murder was committed upon one or more persons at random and without apparent motive. (Instruction No. 9). We know that the murder was not motiveless. We know what the motive was here; it was robbery, pure and simple. As stated in the Majority Opinion, Dorothy Moore testified that Lane told her that he had shot a cab driver in the head three times and taken money. This looks a lot like a robbery to me  the motive, obviously, was to take the cabbie's money. The robbery was not motiveless; at least there is no evidence that this is the case. I certainly do not disagree with the proposition adopted by this court in Moran v. State, 103 Nev. 138, 143, 734 P.2d 712, 714 (1987), that a robbery can be committed and that there can still be an accompanying motiveless killing and, therefore, an aggravated murder. If the facts here were to have shown that Lane took the cabbie's money and then, for no apparent reason, shot him, we might have evidence to support the motiveless aggravator. The facts in this case do not, however, support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that this killing was done other than in the course of a robbery. Unfortunately for the State, as I have said, the district attorney did not charge murder during robbery as an aggravator. The jury found as the fifth aggravator that the murder was committed by [Lane], for himself or another, to receive money or other thing of monetary value. (Instruction No. 9). This aggravating circumstance applies to contract killings, when murderers do their ugly deed in order to receive money or other thing of monetary value, and it cannot be contorted to fit a robbery-murder, a special aggravating circumstance which is expressly provided for in NRS 200.033(4). If this aggravating circumstance equates with robbery-murder, then the separate robbery-murder aggravating circumstance contained in the statutory scheme would be redundant. Now on to the hard aggravators. Aggravators 2 and 3 require that Lane have been engaged in flight from a robbery at the time of the murder of taxi-cab driver Dunham. NRS 200.033(4), the statute that describes the conditions under which flight might amount to an aggravating circumstance is to me extremely difficult to decipher, as is the flight instruction given to the jury in which the trial court tried to define the conditions under which the flight portion of NRS 200.033(4) applies. For ready reference, and to confirm the complexity of and the difficulty in understanding the statute and the findings of the jury verdict, I set these out in the margin. [1] The confusion inherent in the statute and jury findings aside, let me go ahead and see if it is possible to make any sense out of the flight aggravating circumstances that were found by the jury in this case. (I must say that I believe this task to be impossible.) The first flight aggravator found by the jury (as aggravating circumstance 2) is necessarily based on the language in NRS 200.033(4) that the murder was committed while [Lane] was engaged ... in the commission of or an attempt to commit or flight after committing or attempting to commit, any robbery and that Lane (a) Killed or attempted to kill the person murdered; or (b) Knew or had reason to know that life would be taken or lethal force used. Since I cannot understand what this statute says or means, I go on to read the actual finding of the jury made pursuant to this incomprehensible statutory language. The jury found that Lane killed the taxi driver, Dunham, while GERALD CARTER LANE was engaged in flight after attempting to commit robbery[,] and GERALD CARTER LANE attempted to kill FREDERICK SPRUELL[ ] or that he knew or had reason to know that life would be taken or lethal force used. I have tried to make an effort to understand what the jury was trying to do when it concluded that an aggravating circumstance existed under NRS 200.033(4). The best that I could come up with was that the jury found: 1. Lane murdered Dunham while [Lane] was engaged in flight after attempting to commit robbery (of some unspecified person); or 2. Lane attempted to kill FREDERICK SPRUELL; or 3. Lane knew or had reason to know that life would be taken or lethal force used. How in the world is Lane or any one else expected to know just what Lane did to make him eligible for the death penalty? Is it because he murdered Dunham while he was engaged in flight after attempting to commit some unspecified robbery? Or was it because he attempted to kill Spruell? Or was it because he knew at the time he killed Dunham that a life would be taken or lethal force [would be] used [by him]? Aside from the impermissible multiplicity of alternate charges, NRS 200.033(4) does not mention an attempt[ ] to kill; and it is senseless to say that Lane committed aggravated murder because he knew that he, Lane, was going to take a life or use lethal force. This finding of an aggravating circumstance is farcical, and even if we were willing to isolate out of all the alternate possibilities murder ... committed while ... engaged in flight after attempting to commit robbery, there is no specification as to what robbery the jury had in mind. Whatever robbery the jury might have been thinking about, it certainly looks to me as though Lane's robbery-murder of Dunham was an isolated event, which he did on his own for the usual purpose that motivates robbers. Even, if some readers are able to make sense out of either NRS 200.033(4) or jury finding 2, and even if we ignore the multiple possible bases for the finding, absent a specification of whom Lane is charged with robbing and absent any evidence that Lane was fleeing from another robbery at the time he robbed and murdered Dunham, a jury finding that, beyond a reasonable doubt, Lane is guilty of committing this amorphous aggravating circumstance cannot stand. That no one at the trial of this case could see that the only real aggravating circumstance in this case is robbery and not flight is a matter of some amazement to me. Under NRS 200.033(4) an aggravating circumstance may be present when the murder was committed while the person was engaged, alone or with others, in the commission of ... any robbery. It is quite clear that the murder here was committed not while Lane was engaged in flight from a robbery but, rather, in the actual commission of a robbery. Murder committed during a robbery is the only appropriate aggravating circumstance in this case and the one that should have been given to the jury. Strangely, the State did not charge that the murder was committed while Lane was engaged in the commission of a robbery; rather, the State charged that Dunham's murder was committed while Lane was engaged in flight from some other, unspecified robbery or attempted robbery. I cannot even begin to guess why the prosecution did this. It is clear that Lane committed murder during a robbery. It is equally clear that Lane did not commit murder during flight. At the time he decided to rob Dunham, Lane and his friend, Millhouse, were traveling together by taxi on their way to Lakeview Apartments. Lane decided to rob the taxi driver and then, apparently, to kill him. It is too bad that the State did not charge murder during the course of a robbery as an aggravator, because such an aggravator is clearly present here. Finally, with regard to the second flight aggravator, aggravating circumstance number 3, I confess that I can make no sense of it at all. The jury did find, among other findings in number 3, that Lane was guilty of a murder ... committed while [Lane] was engaged in the commission of or flight after committing robbery. It is hard to distinguish this from number 2 discussed above, and if number 2 were to stand, number 3 should be disallowed as being duplicitous. The jury made a number of additional findings to support this single aggravating circumstance, including the finding that [Lane] killed RAYMOND DUNHAM[] or that he knew or had reason to know that life would be taken or lethal force used. This latter finding is, of course, of no consequence. Lane cannot, obviously, be punished for both shooting and killing Dunham and, additionally, for knowing that there was going to be lethal forced used in his killing of Dunham. The jury instructions and the jury findings result in two engaged-in-flight aggravators which are terribly confusing and have no support in the record, much less support beyond a reasonable doubt. [2] Since there are no properly found aggravating circumstances, I must conclude that Lane is not death-eligible; therefore I would reverse his death sentence.