Opinion ID: 1354475
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Testimony of Charlene Williams aka Charlene Gallego

Text: Gallego contends that the lower court erred in permitting Charlene Williams, aka Charlene Gallego, to testify as an accomplice to Gallego's crimes. Prior to Gallego's trial, Charlene had entered a guilty plea to two counts of second degree murder in the deaths of Karen and Stacey and had been sentenced in connection therewith. Charlene testified at trial that she had directly participated in the kidnapping and asportation of the two victims, knowing they would be killed. Under Nevada law, NRS 175.291, [3] the evidence against Gallego must be analyzed independent of Charlene's testimony in order to ascertain whether sufficient evidence otherwise exists tending to connect Gallego to the commission of the crimes. Defendant argues that no evidence independent of the accomplice testimony exists to link him to the two offenses charged. We disagree. During the course of the trial, the State produced corroborative evidence that, in cumulative effect, sufficiently connected Gallego to the two murders. An uncommon variety of macrame rope was found in the trunk of Gallego's Triumph 1500 automobile that matched in all respects the rope that bound the two victims. The State also introduced a photograph taken of Gallego and certain friends several years before the killings at the identical site where the victims were found. The burial place for the two young women was a remote site in a vast desert area, a spot shown to be familiar to Gallego. Additionally, the State proved that the defendant was in Nevada at Lake Tahoe one day following the disappearance of the victims. Finally, evidence of the murders of Kippie Vaught and Rhonda Scheffler showed a common scheme or plan consistent with the kidnappings, sexual molestation and eventual killings in the instant case. The cumulative impact of the aforementioned corroborative evidence was sufficient to tie Gallego to the commission of the homicides without resort to Charlene's testimony. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in its ruling on this issue. Gallego nevertheless contends that Charlene should not have been allowed to testify in any event because of the spousal privilege. This issue is also without merit. Unlike California, where the spousal privilege belongs to and may be waived by the witness, People v. Lankford, 55 Cal. App.3d 203, 127 Cal. Rptr. 408 (1976), the Nevada evidence code precludes a wife from testifying for or against her husband without his consent. NRS 49.295(1)(a). Therefore, if Charlene and Gallego were lawfully married, her testimony against Gallego would have violated the spousal privilege. The validity of the marriage Gallego seeks to invoke depends upon the effect of a California nunc pro tunc order entered approximately eighteen years after a 1964 Nevada marriage that was void ab initio under the laws of this State. Gallego contends that the aforesaid order reinstates a 1966 marriage which was otherwise void under Nevada law because the marriage was performed in Nevada at a time when only an interlocutory decree of divorce had been obtained with respect to Gallego's earlier California marriage. If Gallego's theory were correct, it would render two subsequent marriages (one of which was never terminated by divorce) void and a third marriage and divorce valid, thereby making his 1978 marriage to Charlene in Reno, Nevada, valid and subsisting at the time of trial. Gallego, who sought and obtained the California nunc pro tunc order in an attempt to successfully invoke the spousal privilege, was never lawfully wedded to Charlene. NRS 125.290 specifies that all marriages solemnized within this State wherein either of the parties have a husband or wife then living are void. Since the marriage that Gallego sought to validate by means of the nunc pro tunc order was void from the beginning, there was no marriage concerning which the California order could operate to save. Charlene's testimony did not violate the spousal privilege. C.