Court Opinion

ID: 9795521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:30:38.090417+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:30:12.114313
License: Public Domain

*901Agosti, J.,
with whom Maupin, J., agrees, concurring:
I write separately to express my disagreement with that portion of the majority’s analysis which characterizes as misconduct the State’s remarks in closing argument concerning defense expert testimony. I see a great difference between disparaging or belittling an expert as “[t]he hired gun from Hot Tub Country”1 and calling an expert “high falootin’,” which is hyperbole, but not misconduct. I also believe that the money charged by an expert is very proper impeachment material and properly referred to in argument. In this instance, the State’s reference to the fact that Clark County paid Mr. Esten’s fee is not misconduct. The prosecutor’s statement in this case is a far cry from the comment in Sipsas,2 where the prosecutor’s remark was calculated to make the jurors feel cheated as taxpayers and to thereby build resentment against Sipsas, the defendant.
Having said that, I believe that even without its determination of prosecutorial misconduct the majority’s conclusion that Butler is entitled to a new sentencing hearing is proper.

Sipsas v. State, 102 Nev. 119, 124-25, 716 P.2d 231, 234 (1986).

Id. at 125, 716 P.2d at 234-35.