Court Opinion

ID: 9631123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:29:38.896459+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:49.110204
License: Public Domain

Rose, J.,
concurring and dissenting:
I wholeheartedly concur in the affirmance of the convictions of Gaitor and Allen for robbery. However, I find the evidence insufficient to support their convictions for conspiracy to commit robbery and dissent from the affirmance on that issue.
Gaitor and Allen shoved the victim to the pavement in a parking lot, took his wallet from him and ran. From these facts establishing the robbery, the State argues that we can infer a conspiracy to commit the robbery which preceded the actual attack. I do not believe this can or should be done.
A conspiracy to commit robbery requires that two or more people conspire to commit it. NRS 199.480. Mere association with a co-defendant is insufficient to support the charge of conspiracy. Peterson v. Sheriff, 95 Nev. 522, 598 P.2d 623 (1979). There is no direct evidence to establish that the defendants met or even agreed to commit a crime before the assault on the victim. The facts of the primary offense, the robbery, give no indication that there was a predetermined plan or agreement. Had the facts of the robbery shown a more thought-out or planned crime, then the inference of a prior agreement to commit the crime would be reasonable. See People v. Larsen, 572 P.2d 815 (Colo. 1978) (conviction of getaway car driver for conspiracy to commit robbery was affirmed because actual robbers ran directly to the *792driver’s car after the robbery, the driver responded to the robbers’ direction and drove away, and the car was equipped with stolen license plates). However, facts showing a coordinated series of acts from which a prior agreement can be reasonably inferred are lacking in this case.
When a co-conspirator’s out-of-court statement is offered to prove that the defendant agreed to commit an unlawful act with another, the hearsay rule requires corroboration of that conspiracy with independent evidence. See Peterson, supra. Consequently, to prove the crime of conspiracy, should not we require some independent evidence other than the fact that two people committed the crime? At the very least, the facts establishing the primary offense should show a reasonably clear inference that an agreement preceded the perpetration of the crime.
Judge Learned Hand called conspiracy “the darling of the modern prosecutor’s nursery.” Harrison v. United States, 7 F. 259, 263 (2nd Cir. 1925). In argument before this court, the deputy district attorney stated that approximately 80 percent of the criminal complaints against multiple defendants filed in Clark County charge a conspiracy as well as the primary offense. Time has not changed the attractiveness of this crime to prosecuting attorneys.
From our decision today, a prior conspiracy can be inferred whenever a crime is committed by two people. I do not believe this is good law or sound policy. For that reason, I dissent from the affirmance of the conspiracy convictions, but concur in all other aspects of the majority opinion.