Opinion ID: 1199639
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: This court's analysis of the denial of appellant's guilty plea overlooked a material matter.

Text: Schoels claims finally that this court's analysis of the denial of his guilty plea was materially flawed. We conclude that this claim has merit. Shortly before the trial, Schoels moved the district court to allow him to plead guilty to the charge of ex-felon in possession of a firearm so that the jury would not learn of his prior robbery conviction. The court denied it, saying that a change of plea was highly detrimental to the state. Schoels then moved to sever the count of ex-felon in possession of a firearm, and the court denied it on grounds of judicial economy. Schoels later objected unsuccessfully to the reading of the information to the jury. This court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing the guilty plea. Our opinion focused on the trial court's discretion to accept or reject a guilty plea and cited the trial court's authority to protect public interests, including assuring fairness to the prosecution. Schoels, 114 Nev. at 984, 966 P.2d at 737. The opinion did not explain how accepting the guilty plea would have harmed the state's case. Although we noted Schoels's argument that the jury deliberated the murder charge while improperly influenced by knowledge that he was an ex-felon, we did not discuss the merits of that argument. In a supplement to his petition, [2] Schoels cites this court's recent decision, Brown v. State, 114 Nev. ___, 967 P.2d 1126 (1998). In Brown, the information read in open court at the beginning of the trial included charges of ex-felon in possession of a firearm along with other counts. Because Brown failed to object contemporaneously to the reading, we declined to consider his argument that exposing the jury to evidence of his prior felony convictions was prejudicial. Nevertheless, we held that henceforth where the state seeks conviction on multiple counts, any counts of ex-felon in possession of a firearm must be severed so that the jury trying the other counts will not be exposed to evidence of a defendant's prior felony convictions. Despite the legitimate interest in efficiency and judicial economy served by joinder, we required severance to ensure fairness and avoid prejudice to the defendant. The reasoning in Brown is apposite to this case but was overlooked in our original opinion. The state argues that Brown announces a new rule which applies only prospectively. New rules apply prospectively unless they are rules of constitutional law, and then they apply retroactively only under certain circumstances. Gier v. District Court, 106 Nev. 208, 212, 789 P.2d 1245, 1248 (1990). Brown announces a rule of law which is not constitutionally demanded, and this court's opinion correctly indicates that the rule is to be applied prospectively. However, this case differs from Brown in two material ways which support reaching the issue here independently of Brown. One, this court did not apply the new rule in Brown to Brown because he failed to object at trial, but Schoels preserved this issue at the trial level by seeking to plead guilty, by moving for severance, and by objecting to the reading of the information in open court. Two, Brown did not seek to plead guilty to the charge of ex-felon in possession of a firearm; he sought only a severance. By contrast, in this case the justification for denying severancejudicial economywas initially completely absent. Schoels sought first to plead guilty, which would not have necessitated a separate trial. On the contrary, it would have saved the state the effort of proving the charge at all. Although Schoels moved to change his plea when trial was imminent, the district court cited no facts to support its finding that allowing Schoels to plead guilty would have harmed the state, and we see none in the recordother than the state's loss of the prejudicial effect arising from informing the jury that Schoels was an ex-felon. But this effect is unfair, as we stated in Brown. In our original opinion, we discerned one error during the guilt phase: the jury instructions failed to convey unambiguously that a direct physical assault on the defendant is not necessary to find sufficient provocation for voluntary manslaughter. We deemed this error harmless. Schoels, 114 Nev. at 985-86, 966 P.2d at 738. We must now consider the effect of both this original error and the new one, the jury's exposure to evidence of the prior robbery conviction, to determine without reservation whether the guilty verdict would have been the same without the errors. [3] See Homick, 112 Nev. at 316, 913 P.2d at 1288. We must consider whether the issue decided by the jury is close, the quantity and character of the error, and the gravity of the crime charged. See id. We conclude that the original error remains harmless because the evidence did not show any provocation by the victim sufficient to excite an irresistible passion in a reasonable person, a necessary element of voluntary manslaughter. See NRS 200.050. However, we conclude that the new error undermines the reliability of the verdict of first-degree murder. The evidence showed that Schoels and the victim had argued for quite some time and that the victim threatened Schoels and harangued and insulted Schoels up to the moment that Schoels pulled and fired the gun. Given these circumstances, the issue of first versus second-degree murder was close. The character of the error makes it possible that absent the evidence of his prior conviction for robbery, the jury might have given Schoels the benefit of the doubt and found him guilty of only second-degree murder rather than premeditated first-degree murder. First-degree murder is the gravest of crimes. We conclude therefore that Schoels's conviction on the count of first-degree murder must be reversed.