Court Opinion

ID: 9484326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:48:58.476238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:10.382480
License: Public Domain

T.G. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
Concurring:
I concur in Judge Noonan’s analysis and in most of his opinion. I write separately only on two matters.
First, my reading of the cold record left me with an abiding belief in Warren Stan-den’s guilt. The facts which led me to this conclusion are set out in Judge Noonan’s opinion, and need not be marshaled here again. However, the jury is the body whose conclusion matters, and its verdict was tainted by a trial error unique in the history of the .common law. Regardless of my view of his guilt, Standen was entitled to a trial at which the jury could fairly weigh all the evidence, a function denied to it by admission of evidence that Standen had previously pleaded guilty.
Second, the State of Nevada is now faced with the practical problem of trying to assemble a new trial fifteen years after the crime was committed. The prosecution, defense counsel and the trial judge make up the first line of defense established by our system for the protection of an accused’s rights. Their failures- in Standen’s ease were basic and repeated. However, when the Nevada Supreme Court had the chance to correct the error in 1985, it applied the wrong test. There was substantial evidence to support the verdict. Unfortunately, this was not the question which was posed by Standen, but it was the one which that Court answered.
No one?s interests, whether the public’s or Standen’s, have been served in this case. We can hope we have all learned from it.