Court Opinion

ID: 9912972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-26 16:37:54.355924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:06:35.748778
License: Public Domain

134 Nev., Advance Opinion 103
                          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEVADA

                    HELEN NATKO,                                            No. 73048-COA
                    Appellant,
                    vs.                                                              FR Cl n     a

                    THE STATE OF NEVADA,
                    Respondent.                                                      DEC 0 2018
                                                                                   ELIZABETH A. BROWN
                                                                                 CLEXoir......c.;;;;ME COURT

                                Appeal from a judgment of conviction, pur'siLian't go celury
                   verdict, of exploitation of a vulnerable person and theft. Eighth Judicial
                   District Court, Clark County; William D. Kephart, Judge.
                                Reversed and remanded.

                   Foley & Oakes, PC, and Daniel T. Foley, Las Vegas,
                   for Appellant.

                   Adam Paul Laxalt, Attorney General, Carson City; Steven B. Wolfson,
                   District Attorney, Jay P. Raman, Chief Deputy District Attorney, and
                   Charles Thoman, Deputy District Attorney, Clark County,
                   for Respondent.

                   BEFORE SILVER, C.J., TAO and GIBBONS, JJ.

                                                      OPINION

                   By the Court, SILVER, C.J.:
                                In this appeal, we consider whether the district court erred by
                   instructing a jury, in a criminal case for exploitation of a vulnerable person
                   and theft, that "[all person's status as a joint account holder does not by itself
                   provide lawful authority to use or transfer anotherrsl assets for their own
                   benefit." We conclude this instruction is inconsistent with NRS 100.085,
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                   and it does not accurately and completely reflect the reasoning and
                   conclusion in Walch v. State,       112 Nev. 25, 909 P.2d 1184 (1996).
                   Accordingly, we hold the jury instruction was a misstatement of law, and it
                   was error to give the instruction. Because the State has failed to
                   demonstrate the error was harmless, we reverse.
                                     FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
                               Helen Natko and• Delford Mencarelli began dating in 1982, a
                   year or two after their respective spouses passed away. During a visit to
                   Pennsylvania in May 2012, Mencarelli was hospitalized for low blood sugar,
                   a complication of his diabetes. After the couple returned to their shared
                   home in Las Vegas, Natko and Mencarelli gave each other durable power of
                   attorney, purportedly so that Natko could help care for Mencarelli. Four
                   days later, Mencarelli added Natko as a joint account holder on his Las
                   Vegas credit union account. In July 2013, Natko withdrew $195,000 from
                   the couple's joint bank account and temporarily placed it into her personal
                   bank account. She returned the money to the couple's joint account within
                   the month. Mencarelli died approximately two years later.
                               Nine months after Mencarelli's death, the State charged Natko
                   with exploitation of a vulnerable person and theft based on the act of
                   withdrawing the money from the joint account in 2013. 1 At trial, the State

                         1 The dissent speculates that Mencarelli "may" have lacked mental
                   capacity at the time the joint bank account was created a year prior, thus
                   voiding the joint account and removing any legal claim Natko may have had
                   to the funds within the account This is mere speculation, and no evidence
                   exists of this in our record. Tellingly, the State's information charged Natko
                   with "willfully, unlawfully and feloniously" exploiting a vulnerable person
                   and theft on July 5, 2013, by withdrawing the $195,000 from a bank account
                   on which she was listed as a joint tenant. The withdrawal of money
                   occurred a full year after the date from which she and Mencarelli set up the
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                   proposed jury instruction 18, which stated: "A person's status as a joint
                   account holder does not by itself provide lawful authority to use or transfer
                   anotherrs] assets for their own benefit." This language was taken nearly
                   verbatim from Walch. Natko objected to the instruction, arguing it was
                   inaccurate under the current version of NRS 100.085, which was amended
                   in 1995. The district court, relying on Walch, ultimately gave the
                   instruction. A jury found Natko guilty on both counts, 2 and the district
                   court sentenced her to a suspended aggregate prison term of 36 to 144
                   months and placed her on probation. This appeal follows.
                                                   ANALYSIS
                               Natko argues that jury instruction 18 was a misstatement of
                   law because it directly contradicts NRS 100.085, and the district court
                   incorrectly relied on Walch in giving the instruction because Walch was
                   decided under a prior version of NRS 100.085. The State counters that jury
                   instruction 18 was a correct statement of law that was not overruled by the
                   amendments to NRS 100.085 and, therefore, the district court properly
                   relied on Walch.
                               "District courts have broad discretion to settle jury
                   instructions." Cortinas v. State, 124 Nev. 1013, 1019, 195 P.3d 315, 319
                   (2008). "While we normally review the decision to [give or] refuse a jury
                   instruction for an abuse of that discretion or judicial error, we review de
                   novo whether a particular instruction, such as the one at issue in this case,

                   joint bank account. Significantly, too, the State never charged Natko with
                   exploitation or fraud for any actions prior to the date of the withdrawal of
                   funds from the joint bank account.

                         The judgment of conviction erroneously states Natko was convicted
                         2
                   pursuant to a guilty plea.
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                   comprises a correct statement of the law."       Id.   Further, whether jury
                   instruction 18 was an accurate statement of the law involves statutory
                   interpretation, which we also review de novo. See Bigpond v. State, 128
                   Nev. 108, 114, 270 P.3d 1244, 1248 (2012). When interpreting a statute, we
                   first examine the statute's plain meaning. Id. "[I]f the statute is clear, we
                   do not look beyond the statute's plain language." Sheriff v. Witzenburg, 122
                   Nev. 1056, 1061, 145 P.3d 1002, 1005 (2006).
                               NRS 100.085 was amended to its current version in 1995. 3 1995
                   Nev. Stat., ch. 426, § 1, at 1054-55. NRS 100.085(1) provides, in relevant
                   part: "If an account is intended to be held in joint tenancy, the account or
                   proceeds from the account are owned by the persons named, and may be
                   paid or delivered to any of them • . . ." (Emphasis added.) And, as relevant
                   to this appeal, NRS 100.085(4) provides that, "[f]or the purposes of this
                   section, unless a depositor specifically provides otherwise, the use by the
                   depositor of [joint account] . . . in designating the ownership of an account
                   indicates the intent of the depositor that the account be held in joint
                   tenancy." When read together, the plain language of NRS 100.085(1) and
                   (4) establishes a presumption that a person's status as a joint account holder

                         3 We recognize that the opinion in        Walch was issued in 1996.
                   However, Wakh is not controlling here, because the defendant, Walch, was
                   charged based on acts that were committed before the amendment of NRS
                   100.085, and therefore, the Walch court would have considered the pre-
                   amendment version of NRS 100.085 when deciding the appeal. See State v.
                   Second Judicial Dist. Court (Pullin), 124 Nev. 564, 568, 188 P.3d 1079, 1081
                   (2008) (stating, in the context of addressing sentencing penalties, "the law
                   in effect at the time of the commission of a crime governs the prosecution of
                   criminal offenses").

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                   provides that person with ownership of, and authority to use, the funds in
                   the joint account. 4
                                In contrast to NRS 100.085, jury instruction 18 stated that a
                   person's status as a joint account holder alone does not provide the
                   authority to use another person's assets. Jury instruction 18 was
                   inconsistent with NRS 100.085 because it implied Natko did not have lawful
                   authority to use or transfer the funds in the joint account for her own
                   benefit. The State argues that the instruction was nevertheless a correct
                   statement of the law under Watch. We disagree.
                                In Wakh, the elderly victim gave the defendant, Walch, durable
                   power of attorney that "expressly precluded Walch from using [the victim's]
                   assets for Walch's own legal obligations, including but not limited to support
                   of the agent's dependents." 112 Nev. at 27, 909 P.2d at 1185 (internal
                   quotation marks omitted). Walch thereafter opened two joint bank accounts
                   with the victim's money that named Walch and the victim as joint account
                   holders, and Walch wrote checks from those accounts for her personal use.

                         4 Because the statute is clear, we need not look to the legislative
                   history to determine the meaning of the statute. See Witzenburg, 122 Nev.
                   at 1061, 145 P.3d at 1005. Nevertheless, we note that the legislative history
                   expressly demonstrates that the 1995 amendments to NRS 100.085 were
                   specifically intended to clarify that each party on a joint account has a right
                   to funds in the account and the right of survivorship to funds in the account
                   upon the death of one of the account holders. See Hearing on S.B. 424 Before
                   the Assembly Judiciary Comm., 68th Leg. (Nev., June 15, 1995) (John
                   Sande, representing the Nevada Bankers Association, testified that "if it is
                   held as a joint tenancy, as that is defined in [NRS 100.085] under Subsection
                   4. . . either party, or any party that [is] on the account, has the right to
                   those funds, that they will pass to the survivor on the death so that there's
                   certainty," and, upon inquiry, he clarified that "[u]nder any interpretation,"
                   any party on a joint account, even if the parties do not live in the same house
                   and have different families, "could take all the funds out of that account.").
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                   Id. at 27-29, 909 P.2d at 1185-86. On appeal, Walch cited to MRS 100.085(1)
                   and argued that she could not be guilty of theft as a matter of law because,
                   as a party on the joint accounts, she had lawful authority to withdraw any
                   or all of the funds from those accounts and use them as she wished.      Id. at
                   30-31, 909 P.2d at 1187-88. The supreme court rejected this argument,
                   concluding that "Walch's mere status as a party to the joint accounts did
                   not provide her with lawful authority to use [the victim's] assets for her own
                   benefit and therefore did not preclude her conviction for theft." Id. at 33,
                   909 P.2d at 1189. This conclusion was based on the observation that the
                   jury "could have concluded that Walch placed [the victim's] funds into the
                   two accounts with the intention of withdrawing them later for her own
                   benefit." Id. The court reasoned that "[i]f so, Walch's felonious intent and
                   actions commenced before such monies reached the two accounts, and her
                   status as a joint legal owner of the account funds would not shield her from
                   culpability for theft of funds subsequently withdrawn and misused." Id.
                               In Walch, therefore, the supreme court did not conclude that
                   NRS 100.085 does not create a presumption of ownership by a joint account
                   holder of the funds in a joint account. Rather, Walch is best understood to
                   stand for the proposition that despite the presumption of ownership
                   established by MRS 100.085, a person named on a joint account can still be,
                   under some circumstances, convicted of theft for withdrawing and/or
                   misusing funds from the joint account. The State is correct that this aspect
                   of Walch was not impacted by the 1995 amendments to NRS 100.085. This
                   is so because there is nothing in NRS 100.085 that precludes a joint account
                   holder from being convicted of theft for the withdrawal and/or misuse of
                   funds in the joint account. However, based on the reasoning in Walch, in
                   order to convict a joint account holder of theft based on the withdrawal

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                   and/or misuse of funds from a joint account, the State must allege and
                   establish that the criminal intent arose prior to the funds being deposited
                   into the joint account.
                               Because jury instruction 18 broadly stated: "A person's status
                   as a joint account holder does not by itself provide lawful authority to use
                   or transfer another[s] assets for their own benefit," it did not accurately
                   reflect the reasoning and conclusions in            Walch and was therefore
                   incomplete. Notably, the instruction did not identify the circumstances
                   under which a person named as a party on a joint account could be convicted
                   of theft based on withdrawal and/or misuse of funds from the joint account. 5
                   Accordingly, we conclude jury instruction 18 was not a correct statement of
                   the law and it was error to give the instruction.
                               Because Natko objected to the use of jury instruction 18, we
                   review the error under the harmless error standard.       See Barnier u. State,
                   119 Nev. 129, 132, 67 P.3d 320, 322 (2003). "[T]he State bears the burden
                   of proving that the error was harmless." Polk v. State, 126 Nev. 180, 183
                   n.2, 233 P.3d 357, 359 n.2 (2010). 6 To meet this burden, it may be necessary

                         5A jury instruction that accurately reflects the reasoning and
                   conclusions in Walch may have stated the following: A person's status as a
                   joint legal owner of account funds does not shield the person from
                   culpability for the taking of those funds if the State can demonstrate that
                   the person's criminal intent and actions commenced before the money was
                   placed into the joint account.

                         6 The dissent argues that the lack of trial transcripts in the record
                   demands an affirmance. However, because the State failed to argue
                   harmless error after Natko alleged reversible error by the district court, the
                   State waived its argument that harmless error applies. Polk, 126 Nev. at
                   183 n.2, 233 P.3d at 359 n.2 ("[A respondent] who fails to include and
                   properly argue a contention in the [respondent's] brief takes the risk that
                   the court will view the contention as forfeited." (internal quotations and
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                   for the State to file a respondent's appendix that includes "those documents
                   necessary to rebut appellant's position on appeal which are not already
                   included in appellant's appendix." NRAP 30(b)(4). Reversal will be
                   warranted unless the State can show "it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt
                   that a rational jury would have found the defendant guilty absent the error."
                   Nay v. State, 123 Nev. 326, 334, 167 P.3d 430, 435 (2007) (internal quotation
                   marks omitted).
                               The State fails to argue on appeal, let alone demonstrate from
                   the record, that the error is harmless. A joint appendix was not filed in this
                   appeal and, although recognizing Natko did not provide this court with a
                   copy of the trial transcripts, the State did not file a respondent's appendix
                   and provide the trial transcripts to this court. Nothing in the record before
                   this court indicates that Mencarelli or Natko specifically provided that they
                   did not intend to hold the joint account in joint tenancy. Therefore, jury
                   instruction 18 was not a correct statement of the law, and it improperly
                   implied to the jury that Natko did not have lawful authority to use and/or
                   withdraw the funds in the joint account. The State alleged Natko
                   committed the crimes of exploitation of a vulnerable person and theft based
                   on the act of withdrawing money from Natko and Mencarelli's joint account.
                   Thus, without the trial transcripts, or anything to show the facts are like
                   those in Walch, we cannot say that the error was harmless. Because the
                   State has failed to meet its burden and demonstrate the error is harmless,
                   we conclude the error warrants reversal.

                   citation omitted)). And, because the jury instruction given here was
                   incomplete, as a matter of law, we are constrained to reverse under the
                   circumstances of this case. See Cortinas, 124 Nev. at 1019, 1023-27, 195
                   P.3d at 319, 322-24 (reviewing de novo whether a jury instruction is a
                   correct statement of law and addressing the effect of instructional errors).
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                                                 CONCLUSION
                               The district court erred by giving jury instruction 18 because it
                   was not a correct statement of the law. The instruction was inconsistent
                   with NRS 100.085 because it broadly stated that a person's status as a joint
                   account holder did not give her the authority to use another's assets within
                   the joint account for her own benefit. Further, the instruction did not
                   accurately reflect the reasoning and conclusions in Walch.      Because the
                   State has failed to meet its burden to demonstrate this error was harmless,
                   we reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

                                                                                       C.J.
                                                       Silver

                   I concur:

                                                  J.
                   Gibbons

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                   TAO, J., dissenting:
                               Before we can even get to the merits of Natko's arguments,
                   there's a threshold problem: Natko was convicted following a jury trial, yet
                   failed to supply copies of the trial transcript for us to review on appeal. We
                   have partial transcripts of arguments of counsel surrounding the challenged
                   jury instruction and some transcripts of post-trial motion argument. But
                   we have no transcripts of the testimony of any trial witness reflecting the
                   evidence admitted during the trial, no transcripts of the opening
                   statements, and no transcripts of the closing arguments.
                               Consequently, we have no idea—none at all—what transpired
                   at trial, what evidence either party introduced, or what the jury's verdict
                   was or was not based upon. Absent that, I don't know how we can possibly
                   analyze what effect, if any at all, jury instruction 18 may have had upon
                   Natko's trial. To me, that omission alone demands affirmance, because
                   we're required to presume that any missing portions of the record support,
                   not undermine, the jury's verdict. See Johnson v. State, 113 Nev. 772, 776,
                   942 P.2d 167, 170 (1997) ("It is appellant's responsibility to make an
                   adequate appellate record. We cannot properly consider matters not
                   appearing in that record." (citation omitted)); Riggins v. State, 107 Nev. 178
                   182, 808 P.2d 535, 538 (1991) (concluding that if materials are not included
                   in the record on appeal, the missing materials "are presumed to support the
                   district court's decision"), rev'd on other grounds by Riggins v. Nevada, 504
                   U.S. 127 (1992).
                               At the very least, I don't know what business we have reversing
                   a felony jury verdict when the appellant has failed to properly apprise us of
                   what actually happened below. Yet not only does the majority reverse a
                   felony conviction without a transcript of the proceedings below, it does so

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                   via a broad legal ruling that upends a large swath of settled law. If the
                   majority is correct, then NRS 100.085 isn't an obscure and rarely litigated
                   statute unknown to much of the public, but rather one of the most sweeping
                   laws ever enacted in Nevada—one that fundamentally undermines
                   property law all the way back to the founding of this State.
                               Where I think the majority errs is in conflating the concept of
                   legal authority (or possession) over personal property with the concept of
                   ownership (or title) of the property. MRS 100.085 deals with the authority
                   of any named account holder to withdraw money from a joint account and
                   the bank's liability for allowing such withdrawals. But the majority makes
                   it reach much farther to say that the act of depositing money into a joint
                   account actually changes who owns the money. I read MRS 100.085 as
                   saying nothing of the sort, and for all of these reasons I respectfully dissent.
                                                          I.
                               This appeal arises from a criminal case that implicates defenses
                   based upon principles of banking and property law. On appeal, Natko raises
                   a single argument: she asserts that one jury instruction given at trial (jury
                   instruction 18) was incorrect.
                               Natko was convicted of two felony counts: one count of theft and
                   one count of exploitation of a vulnerable person. The crux of the charges (as
                   far as we can tell based upon arguments of counsel without a transcript of
                   the trial) was that her name was added to a bank account first opened by
                   her victim (her long-time boyfriend, according to the briefs), which changed
                   it from a sole account to a joint one, and thereafter she withdrew large
                   amounts of money from it at a time when the victim might not have been
                   sufficiently lucid to agree to such financial decisions.

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                                Her defense was this (again, based upon arguments of counsel
                   without an actual trial transcript): once the account became a joint account,
                   all of the money in it became hers as a "joint tenant" to use any way she
                   pleased, and she could not possibly be convicted of stealing what already
                   belonged to her. At common law, joint tenants could not "steal" jointly
                   owned property from each other.           See 3 Wayne LaFave, Substantive
                   Criminal Law § 19.4(c), at 106 (3d ed. 2018) ("The common law view of
                   larceny is that [one joint tenant] cannot steal from the other co-owner."); 3
                   Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law § 381, at 457-58 (15th ed. 1995)
                   ("When, under principles of property law, property is owned by cotenants so
                   that each one is entitled to the possession of the property jointly or in
                   common with the others, one tenant cannot be guilty of larceny when he
                   takes possession of the property, even though he does so with the intent to
                   exclude the others from its use and enjoyment. . . .").
                               The question is whether a "joint tenancy" existed here. For
                   support, Natko contends that NRS 100.085 mandates that all money
                   deposited in joint accounts, automatically and by operation of law, becomes
                   the property of all account holders in joint tenancy. Consequently, she
                   asserts the following jury instruction incorrectly describes the law:
                               18. A person's status as a joint account holder does
                               not by itself provide lawful authority to use or
                               transfer another [sic] assets for their own benefit.
                               But it seems to me to be Natko, not jury instruction 18, who
                   misstates the law. Natko confuses the act of placing a name onto a bank
                   account with legal ownership of the assets within the account. The creation
                   of a bank account is governed by banking law. Ownership of personal
                   property is governed by principles of property law. These are two entirely
                   different things.
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                               First, property law. Personal property may be owned by one
                   person as a sole owner, or it may be owned by more than one person
                   simultaneously. If owned by more than one person, the owners may be
                   tenants in common, or they may be joint tenants. See NRS 111.063 (tenants
                   in common in personal property); NRS 111.065(2) (joint tenants in personal
                   property). The difference between the two is whether the ownership
                   provides for a right of survivorship should one owner die during the tenancy.
                   See Smolen v. Smolen, 114 Nev. 342, 344, 956 P.2d 128, 130 (1998) ("[T]he
                   principal feature of the estate [is] the right of survivorship."). In Nevada,
                   personal property may also take the form of community property when co-
                   owned by husband and wife, but because Natko and the victim were never
                   married, that classification has no relevance here.
                               The parties do not dispute (again, based solely upon arguments
                   of counsel; we don't know what was proven at trial) that, before Natko's
                   name was added to the existing account, every penny of the money
                   deposited in it was the sole property of the victim. Natko agrees that she
                   had no ownership interest in any of the money before her name was added
                   to the account. However, she argues that once the account became joint, by
                   operation of law everything in it became hers as a "joint tenant."
                               Maybe. But maybe not. The answer depends upon other
                   evidence introduced at trial. Adding Natko's name to the joint account gave
                   her coequal access to the money in it. Did it also give her legal title and
                   permission to withdraw and spend it as she pleased? Not necessarily.
                               A foundational principle of property law is that possession is
                   not the same thing as title. Legal title to personal property, and factual
                   possession of it, are different things that can be severed from each other. A

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                   person can legally possess property without owning it; it's the difference
                   between a loan that conveys possession but not title, and a sale or gift that
                   conveys both title and possession. It's why a house sitter doesn't become a
                   legal owner of the home simply by residing overnight, and why a casino
                   valet parking attendant doesn't own a car just by being handed the keys.
                   Quite to the contrary, the civil tort of conversion occurs precisely when one
                   person wrongfully exerts dominion over property that actually belongs to
                   another. See Golden Rd. Motor Inn, Inc. v. Islam, 132 Nev. 476, 489, 376
                   P.3d 151, 160 (2016). Further, the crime of embezzlement occurs when, with
                   criminal intent, a bailee entrusted with only possession and not ownership
                   of personal property uses it for the bailee's own benefit as if he were the
                   owner. See NRS 205.300.
                               A second foundational principle of property law is that title may
                   transfer from one owner (a grantor) to another (a grantee) only if the grantor
                   intended to convey such title. This has been settled law since 1865.        See
                   Hendricks v. Perkins, 98 Nev. 246, 250, 645 P.2d 973, 975 (1982) (examining
                   whether evidence proved "the parties' intent to convey" an interest in the
                   property); Cox v. Glenbrook Co., 78 Nev. 254, 264, 371 P.2d 647, 654 (1962)
                   (in determining whether property was conveyed to another, "the intention
                   of the parties [is] the object of inquiry"); Ruhling v. Hackett, 1 Nev. 360, 367
                   (1865) (the extent of any transfer of property ownership is measured by "the
                   intention of the parties"). Indeed, acting as if title to property has been
                   transferred when the owner never intended to convey ownership is precisely
                   when the tort of conversion and the crime of embezzlement occur.
                               Natko's argument thus runs afoul of long-established principles
                   of property law: she argues that, under NRS 100.085, merely because she
                   possessed legal authority to withdraw money from the joint account, the

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                   money actually belonged to her as a matter of property law. But this lumps
                   together possession and ownership and makes property change title without
                   any evidence of intent by the owner to do so.
                               What's more, she argues that the property not only changed
                   title, but the form of the title changed from sole ownership to joint tenancy.
                   Under Nevada law, a sole owner of property may convey a sole interest in
                   the property to another simply by expressing an intent to do so and handing
                   over possession. However, when the owner wishes to transmute the form
                   of ownership from sole ownership into ownership by joint tenancy, Nevada
                   law requires considerably more. At common law, creation of a joint tenancy
                   required the "unities of interest, time, title, and possession," Smolen, 114
                   Nev. at 344, 956 P.2d at 130, meaning an intent to convey both title as well
                   as possession without severing them, along with the unity of "time," which
                   means both must be conveyed at the same time in the same transaction. Id.
                   Beyond that, NRS 111.065 adds a writing requirement that did not exist at
                   common law This is so because the essence of joint tenancy is the "right of
                   survivorship" that governs what happens when one of the joint tenants dies.
                   Because many years or decades may go by before one tenant dies, Nevada
                   law requires such transfers to be evidenced by "a written transfer,
                   agreement, or instrument," so that the parties do not become embroiled in
                   probate disputes years after the fact based upon oral statements whose
                   contents may now be difficult to verify. See NRS 111.065(2). If any of these
                   requirements is missing, then there is no proper conveyance in joint tenancy
                   and what was conveyed was only either a tenancy in common or just sole
                   ownership. Smolen, 114 Nev. at 344, 956 P.2d at 130.
                               We have no evidence that any of these requirements for
                   creating a joint tenancy were ever met. So, for NRS 100.085 to make a joint

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                   tenancy anyway, it must displace quite a lot of statutory and common law.
                   But "[t]he Legislature is presumed not to intend to overturn long-
                   established principles of law when enacting a statute [and] this court
                   strictly construes statutes in derogation of the common law." Shadow Wood
                   HOA v. N.Y. Cmty. Bancorp. Inc.,     132 Nev. 49, 59, 366 P.3d 1105, 1112
                   (2016) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). To succeed, Natko
                   needs NRS 100.085 to convey ownership of the victim's money to her
                   whether or not the victim intended to give her a dime; whether or not he
                   intended to convey title as well as possession; whether or not title and
                   possession were conveyed in unity at the same time; whether or not anyone
                   intended the account to be a tenancy in common instead of a joint tenancy;
                   and whether or not any other formality of property law set forth in any other
                   statute was followed.
                               To overcome these gaps and fill in the missing pieces, Natko
                   argues that the victim's intent and all of the unities have already been
                   established simply because once the victim agreed to comply with NRS
                   100.085(4) while constructively knowing what it said, he adopted and
                   agreed to everything it imposed. In other words, by voluntarily agreeing to
                   create a joint bank account under NRS 100.085, the victim constructively
                   agreed to convey his money to Natko in joint tenancy because that's what
                   the statute would make a joint account holder do. The way for the victim to
                   avoid such a conveyance and keep the money for himself was not to deposit
                   it into a joint bank account.
                               But this brings us to the next problem, which is that Natko's
                   approach also conflicts with principles of banking law.

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( 0 I I 947.13                                           7
                                                        IlL
                               Bank accounts may be in the name of a sole account holder or
                   they may be in the name of joint account holders. Under traditional
                   principles of banking law, the form of the account, and the name it may
                   bear, may have little to do with the beneficial ownership of' anything
                   deposited into the account. By way of example, trust accounts—such as an
                   attorney trust account holding money for clients, or any other type of trust
                   account used by agents or fiduciaries to hold money on behalf of principals—
                   are classic examples of bank accounts that may bear the name of one person
                   or entity but actually hold money beneficially owned by other people whose
                   names appear nowhere on the accounts. Indeed, the body of federal crimes
                   commonly known as "money laundering" punishes the act of attempting to
                   conceal ownership of ill-gotten money by depositing it into bank accounts in
                   the names of others while secretly retaining control of it. See United States
                   v. Davis, 226 F.3d 346, 357 (5th Cir. 2000); United States v. Rutgard, 116
                   F.3d 1270, 1292 (9th Cir. 1997).
                               The point is that the name on an account may have little to do
                   with who owns what's in it. Who actually owns the money in an account,
                   both before and after it is deposited, is a question for the depositors and
                   account holders to handle between themselves: "Id enerally, the respective
                   rights of the parties to a joint bank account are determined by the rules of
                   contract law, and the intent of the parties with respect to the joint savings
                   account is controlling."   Anderson v. Iowa Dep't of Human Servs., 368
                   N.W.2d 104, 109 (Iowa 1985). See Brasel v. Estate of Harp, 877 S.W.2d 923,
                   925 (Ark. 1994) (stating that "each owner's right to the funds may depend
                   upon an agreement between them as to their ownership rights"); see
                   generally In re Estate of Greer, 128 P.3d 1104, 1107 (Okla. Civ. App. 2005)

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                                                         8
                   (stating that "actual ownership of the funds, as opposed to the right of
                   possession, is a question of intent").
                                Natko argues otherwise, but until now it's been long established
                   that depositing money into a "joint account" does not automatically
                   constitute a conveyance of money from the depositor to other account
                   holders, either as sole owners or as joint tenants. "[A] person who deposits
                   funds in a multiple-party account normally does not intend to make an
                   irrevocable gift of all or any part of the funds represented by the deposit.
                   Rather, he usually intends no present change of beneficial ownership."
                   Deutsch Larrimore & Famish, P.C., v. Johnson, 848 A.2d 137, 143 (Pa.
                   2004). Thus, money deposited in a joint bank account does not belong to
                   other account holders absent "clear and convincing evidence" that the
                   depositing party intended to confer such ownership. Enright v. Lehmann,
                   735 N.W.2d 326, 331 (Minn. 2007). Some states have held that the creation
                   of a joint account established a rebuttable presumption of joint ownership
                   (notably not a conclusive or irrebuttable one), and at one time Nevada
                   employed such a presumption.       See Sly v. Barnett, 97 Nev. 587, 589, 637
                   P.2d 527, 528 (1981). Courts in those states recognized that an irrebuttable
                   presumption of the kind Natko proposes would create a "hardship . . on
                   parties having 'convenience' accounts, as where an incapacitated person
                   might have a joint account for the sole purpose of financial management."
                   Id.   (Which, by the way, in view of the victim's alleged lack of mental
                   capacity might be just what was intended here).
                               But it is simply not true that depositing money into a bank
                   account by itself constitutes a transfer of ownership in the money to
                   someone else just because their name also happens to be on the account,
                   with no consideration of any evidence to the contrary no matter how weighty

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tO) 1947B
                                                            9
                   or persuasive that evidence might be, and no opportunity for ownership to
                   be disputed or challenged by any other party.        See id; see also South v.
                   Smith, 934 S.W.2d 503,507 (Ark. 1996) ("[E]ven though one has a right to
                   withdraw funds from a joint bank account, a joint tenant may not, by
                   withdrawing funds in a joint tenancy, acquire ownership to the exclusion of
                   the other joint tenant. . . ." (citation omitted)). Quite the opposite: a party
                   who merely has his name on a joint account and proves nothing more "fail [s]
                   to establish his ownership of all the funds in the joint accounts." Marcucci
                   v. Hardy, 65 F.3d 986, 992 (1st Cir. 1995). Indeed, if one owner of a joint
                   bank account tries to withdraw more from the joint account than he owns
                   or is entitled to, the other account holders may sue him for the tort of
                   conversion because he has taken something that was not his to take.
                   Newbro v. Freed, 409 F. Supp. 2d 386, 395 (S.D.N.Y. 2006); see Matter of
                   Kleinberg v. Heller, 345 N.E.2d 592 (N.Y. 1976); see also Kettler v. Sec. Nat'l
                   Bank, 805 N.W.2d 817, 823 (Iowa Ct. App. 2011) (stating that "a cotenant
                   may not withdraw from the account in excess of his interest; if he has done
                   so, he is liable to the other joint tenant for the excess so withdrawn"
                   (quotation and citation omitted)); South, 934 S.W.2d at 507 ("[W]hen one
                   [joint account holder] withdraws in excess of his moiety, he is liable to the
                   other joint tenant for the excess withdrawn.").
                               The Nevada Supreme Court long ago rejected the very
                   argument advanced here, in which "plaintiff contends that by depositing the
                   money in the joint account defendant made a valid, completed gift to the
                   plaintiff." Weeks v. Weeks, 72 Nev. 268, 275, 302 P.2d 750, 753 (1956). It
                   rejected this argument summarily, pointedly noting that no authority
                   existed for this proposition but "literally hundreds of cases" stood for the
                   opposite. Id. at 276, 302 P.2d at 754; see Edmonds v. Perry, 62 Nev. 41, 140
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                   P.2d 566 (1943) (under prior statute, merely because a bank account is joint
                   does not mean that it is intended to be a joint tenancy with right of
                   survivorship). Since then, the Nevada Supreme Court's position has
                   consistently remained the same right through 2016: money retains its
                   original ownership even when deposited into a joint account, and
                   consequently "[a] judgment creditor may garnish only a debtor's funds that
                   are held in a joint bank account, not the funds in the account owned by the
                   nondebtor." Brooksby v. Nev. State Bank, 129 Nev. 771, 772, 312 P.3d 501
                   (2013) This is simply because "joint bank account funds [may] truly belong
                   to someone other than the judgment debtor." Id. at 773, 312 P.3d at 502;
                   see Brooks v. Mejia, 2016 WL 197396, Docket No. 67794 (Order of
                   Affirmance, Jan. 14, 2016) (concluding that creditor could not garnish
                   account to pay off debt owed by other account holder because appellant
                   successfully "demonstrated that the funds in the bank account belonged to
                   her alone"). In other words, even when funds from different sources are
                   commingled in a joint bank account, the ownership of the funds does not
                   automatically change merely by being deposited in the joint account.
                   Rather, even when commingled, the funds retain their original ownership
                   status at least so long as ownership can be traced. In re Christensen, 122
                   Nev. 1309, 1323, 149 P.3d 40, 49 (2006) (ownership over funds stays
                   unchanged even when commingled with other funds "so long as tracing is
                   possible").
                                 None of these cases makes any sense (and all would have to be
                   overruled) if Natko is correct about what NRS 100.085 does. These cases
                   make sense only if Natko is wrong. Indeed, they show, conclusively, that
                   she is.

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                                                        11
                               What a joint bank account does is give every account holder
                   some right of access to the money. But access is not the same thing as
                   ownership. "The joint owner of a bank account. . . has the right to
                   withdraw all of the funds, thereby totally divesting the other joint owner of
                   all interest. [But] the creator of a joint account has a cause of action against
                   the other owner for having completely withdrawn the funds, upon
                   establishing that in creating the account the creator did not intend to
                   transfer [all of the funds]." In re Rauh, 164 B.R. 419, 424 (Bank. Ct. D.
                   Mass. 1994); see Kettler, 805 N.W.2d at 823; South, 934 S.W.2d at 507. As
                   another court described a virtually identical statute to NRS 100.085:
                               The intent of [the statute] is to protect a financial
                               institution from liability for distributing funds from
                               a multiple-party account to any of the individual
                               account holders. However, the relationship
                               between a banking institution and the holders of a
                               joint account does not in any manner shape the
                               relationship between the account holders
                               themselves. As such, while [one account holder]
                               was authorized to withdraw the funds, she was not
                               authorized to use the funds for her personal benefit.
                   Sandler v. Jaffe, 913 So. 2d 1205, 1207 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2005).          See
                   Erhardt v. Leonard, 657 P.2d 494, 497 (Idaho Ct. App. 1983) (noting that
                   "[a] ccount contracts . . . define the power of withdrawal held by each party
                   to the account, as a means of protecting the financial institution," but that
                   they do not affect the actual ownership of the funds therein, which is
                   determined by looking to the intent of the depositor).
                                                         IV.
                               Natko argues that she is right and all of this is wrong because
                   NRS 100.085 overturned it all in 1995, when the statute was last amended;
                   ever since then, none of these statutes or common law principles has applied

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                                                          12
                                If she is correct, that raises an interesting question: what
                   happened to money that was deposited into joint bank accounts before 1995
                   and remained there after the amended statute took effect? Natko concedes
                   that, prior to 1995, money deposited into a joint account was not necessarily
                   held in joint tenancy, agreeing that the Nevada Supreme Court said exactly
                   that in Starr v. Rousselet, 110 Nev. . 706, 712, 877 P.2d 525, 530 (1994)
                   (holding that "a simple reference to a 'joint' account . . . will not suffice for
                   purposes of establishing a joint tenancy"). She argues, though, that money
                   deposited into any joint account became automatically held in joint tenancy
                   beginning in 1995 when the last amendment to NRS 100.085 took effect,
                   thereby overruling Starr at least sub silentio.
                                Would this not be a governmental seizure of private property
                   and conveyance to others of all money held in joint bank accounts at the
                   moment the 1995 amendments took effect—possibly tens of millions of
                   dollars of it across Nevada? Nev. Const. art. 1, § 8(5) stipulates that In] o
                   person shall be deprived of. . . property, without due process of law," and
                   art. 1, § 22 provides that " [pi ublic use shall not include the direct or indirect
                   transfer of any interest in property taken in an eminent domain proceeding
                   from one private party to another private party." Yet Natko seems to read
                   the 1995 amendments as accomplishing something very much along those
                   dangerous lines taking all money deposited in any joint account before 1995
                   away from any original sole owner and giving it away in joint tenancy
                   whether the owner wanted to or not.
                                Furthermore, it seems to me that this interpretation creates
                   serious problems with the Contract Clause of the Nevada Constitution,
                   which prohibits any "law impairing the obligation of contracts." Nev. Const.
                   art. 1, § 15. Following Natko's reasoning, any contract governing the

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                                                           13
                   ownership of money held in a joint account before 1995—say, a 1994
                   contract that provided that money held in a joint account was expressly not
                   held in joint tenancy between the parties—would have been voided, ex post
                   facto, by the 1995 amendment to NRS 100.085. That would make NRS
                   100.085 unconstitutional. But we're not supposed to read statutes that way;
                   to the contrary, "when a statute may be given conflicting interpretations,
                   one rendering it constitutional, and the other unconstitutional, the
                   constitutional interpretation is favored." State v. Kopp, 118 Nev. 199, 203,
                   43 P.3d 340, 342-43 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted).
                               Central to the concept of liberty in our constitutional republic
                   is the right to freely convey or dispose of private property as the owner, not
                   the government, sees fit. Indeed, the right to own real and personal
                   property free from government interference is the individual right most
                   frequently mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. See U.S. Const. amend. III
                   (protecting "any house"); amend. IV (protecting "houses" from unreasonable
                   search and seizure); amend. V (prohibiting deprivation of life, liberty, or
                   "property" without due process of law, and preventing "private property"
                   from being taken without just compensation); amend. XIV (prohibiting
                   deprivation of life, liberty, or "property" without due process of law).
                   Government ownership and control of property is the hallmark of
                   communist societies, not free ones. Yet that comes perilously close to what
                   Natko seems to propose here: that the Legislature can simply take one's
                   private property and give it to someone else (or at least make the original
                   owner share it with others against his will) by enacting a statute like NRS
                   100.085.

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                                                         V.
                               Natko argues that this is what NRS 100.085 demands. But the
                   statute doesn't really say what she claims it does.
                               When reviewing statutes, we start with the statutory language
                   and give it the meaning most reasonably supported by the text, structure,
                   and context. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The
                   Interpretation of Legal Texts 170, 174 (2012). If one is an "intentionalist" or
                   "purposivist," one might also peek at the legislative history or announced
                   purpose lurking behind a statute. But neither the stated purpose nor
                   anything in the legislative history can ever override the plain meaning
                   framed by the statute's own language and structure, because the language
                   and structure were all that the Legislature voted on and all that the
                   Governor signed.
                               As a starting point, the structure of NRS 100.085 tells us that
                   it isn't the general all-purpose banking and property law statute that Natko
                   says it is. Quite to the contrary, and quite notably, the general banking
                   statute is located very far away, in NRS Chapter 657. The personal
                   property statute is also located elsewhere, in NRS Chapter 111.
                               In contrast, NRS 100.085 is located within Chapter 100, a
                   chapter directed specifically at "Special Relations of Debtor and Creditor,"
                   and NRS 100.085 is further located adjacent to a series of subchapters titled
                   "Marshaling of Assets," "Suretyship," and "Transfer of Creditor's Rights."
                   The statute is immediately preceded by a series of other statutes addressing
                   "Agreements between principals and sureties for joint control of assets"
                   (NRS 100.060); "Deposits authorized in lieu of cash payment or surety bond
                   for protection of State" (NRS 100.065); and "Creditor's rights transferable
                   without consent of debtor" (NRS 100.075). The statute immediately

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                   following NRS 100.085 is NRS 100.091, titled "Impound account required
                   under loan secured by real property . . . ."
                                What does this tell us? That NRS 100.085 doesn't govern how
                   bank accounts are set up for all purposes, nor does it supplant centuries of
                   common law (along with several current statutes) to dictate who owns
                   personal property; this chapter would be a pretty incongruous place to bury
                   a statute that revolutionary. Rather, being placed here tells us that it's
                   much narrower and is directed toward problems that may arise in
                   debtor/creditor relations. As the Nevada Supreme Court has described the
                   statute, "[t]he effect of NRS 100.085(1) is to protect a depository, such as a
                   bank, from liability if it pays money out to a joint tenant of an account."
                   Walch v. State, 112 Nev. 25, 31, 909 P.2d 1184, 1188 (1996).
                                Structure aside, here are what the plain words of the statute
                   say. Under NRS 100.085(1) and (3), any "deposit made in the name of [two
                   or more persons] and intended to be paid or delivered to any one of them" is
                   the property of all named persons that can be withdrawn by any account
                   holder, and the bank will suffer no liability if the withdrawal turns out to
                   have been against the wishes of other account holders. NRS 100.085(4)
                   specifically states that, "ffl or purposes of this section," the bank may treat
                   a "deposit" into a joint account as if it were intended in joint tenancy so long
                   as the deposit was made in the name of one or more persons into the joint
                   account, unless the "depositor" indicates otherwise.
                               Take these words at face value, and notice what they don't say:
                   they don't say that all joint bank accounts create joint tenancies all the time.
                   Here's why. There are three ways that money can end up in a joint account:
                   it can be deposited in a sole account to which more names are added later
                   to make it joint; it can be deposited into a joint account in the name of only

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                                                          16
                   one account holder; or it can be deposited into a joint account in the names
                   of multiple account holders. Yet NRS 100.085 addresses only one of these
                   (the third). The plain words of NRS 100.085 state that the entire statute
                   comes into play only when a joint account has already been established and
                   a "deposit [is] made in the name of the depositor and one or more other
                   persons." See NRS 100.085(1) ("When a deposit has been made in the name
                   of the depositor and one or more other persons . . . ."); 100.085(3) ("When a
                   deposit has been made in the name of the depositor and one or more other
                   persons . . . .").
                                  By its plain terms, NRS 100.085 isn't triggered by the initial
                   creation of a joint account, but rather only by the making of certain kinds
                   of deposits into one already established. That's the very title of the statute:
                   "Deposits in names of two or more persons" (and not, by contrast, "joint bank
                   accounts" or "joint tenancies"). Even NRS 100.085(4), the section that refers
                   to joint tenancies (and upon which Natko most obviously hangs her hat), is
                   triggered only by the actions of a "depositor" who makes the kind of deposit
                   outlined in sections (1) and (3). In fact, here is the language from (4) that
                   forms the backbone of Natko's entire argument:
                                 4. For the purposes of this section, unless a
                                 depositor specifically provides otherwise, the use by
                                 the depositor of any of the following words or terms
                                 in designating the ownership of an account
                                 indicates the intent of the depositor that the
                                 account be held in joint tenancy. . . . (emphasis
                                 added).
                   On their face, these words don't apply to all joint bank accounts from
                   inception but only when activated by the actions of a "depositor" following
                   a deposit pursuant to (1) or (3). This would not be Natko if she never
                   deposited any of her own money into the account herself in the specific

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                   manner provided by (1) or (3) (which she seems to concede); Natko couldn't
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                   trigger this statute herself as a mere account holder who never made a
                   deposit in the name of more than one person. Did the victim ever trigger
                   section (4)? That depends on evidence we don't have before us.
                               But let's keep going through the text. What happens with the
                   other two situations? Say no such deposits are made in the names of
                   multiple account holders. Or, say deposits were made only back when the
                   account was a sole account before it became joint. Notably, neither of these
                   is covered by NRS 100.085(1), (3), or (4). The statute omits bank accounts
                   that began as sole accounts and then were later converted into joint ones
                   without any more deposits having been made. It also omits bank accounts
                   that are joint, but in which no deposits have yet been made "in the name of
                   the depositor and one or more other persons." These seem like rather
                   glaring omissions, omissions that may potentially encompass thousands of
                   joint accounts, weirdly making some bank accounts into joint tenancies but
                   leaving out quite a lot of them.
                               So if NRS 100.085 creates joint tenancies at all (which I doubt,
                   but let's assume it does for the moment), it does so only sporadically and
                   unpredictably: some joint bank accounts are joint tenancies because the
                   right kind of "deposit" was made into them; some joint bank accounts are
                   not joint tenancies right now but may become joint tenancies in the future
                   upon the making of the right kind of "deposit"; and some joint bank accounts
                   may never become joint tenancies if the right kind of "deposit" is never
                   made. That's a pretty odd scheme.
                               More pointedly, oddity aside, those omissions matter very much
                   to this appeal because at least one of the situations omitted may be precisely
                   the situation at hand. Here, the victim originally deposited what had
                   unequivocally been his own money into a sole account and Natko's name
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(0) I947B                                                18
                   was added to the account only later. Absent a transcript it's not clear
                   whether all of the money at stake was deposited before or after her name
                   was added (your guess is as good as mine on the precise sequence of events).
                   If all of the victim's money was deposited while the account was still sole,
                   then there was never a deposit into any joint account made in the name of
                   more than one person. If so, this case would be precisely one of the
                   situations that the express words of NRS 100.085 would not cover, and
                   Natko's interpretation of the statute leaves her own appeal out.
                               The strangeness of these results suggests something more
                   broad: Natko is simply wrong about what the statute says. Why would a
                   comprehensive banking and property statute omit so much and include so
                   little? The answer must be: because NRS 100.085 is not the comprehensive
                   banking and property statute that Natko argues it is. Rather, it is what
                   Walch said it is: a statute that protects banks from liability. 112 Nev. at 31,
                   909 P.2d at 1188. It applies in only extremely limited circumstances, and
                   says nothing about whether the mere creation of a joint account universally
                   gifts every dollar deposited to everyone else whose name happens to be on
                   the account. NRS 100.085(4) simply protects banks from being sued by a
                   decedent's estate for allowing a surviving account holder to withdraw funds
                   after the depositor has died and the bank mistakenly thought that a right
                   of survivorship was intended. That's all it does. NRS 100.085(4) insulates
                   the bank by allowing it to assume for purposes of the withdrawal that there
                   existed a right of survivorship; but whether there actually was one is a
                   matter to be resolved in probate court as a question of property law.
                                                        VI.
                               If Natko wanted to prove that the money was hers, she could
                   have done so by introducing evidence of the victim's intent to gift the money
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                                                         19
                     to her, and perhaps the creating of the joint account may have constituted
                     some evidence of such intent. But it did not become hers just by operation
                     of law without any evidence that the victim intended a conveyance.
                                  Alternatively, perhaps one might say that the creation of a joint
                     bank account established a prima facie rebuttable presumption that the
                     money in it might be intended to be held in joint tenancy. See Sly, 97 Nev.
                     at 589, 637 P.2d at 528. But even then the jury must consider any and all
                     evidence of intent offered to rebut that presumption.
                                  Either way, NRS 100.085 is not the alpha and omega of the
                     inquiry, with nothing more to ask. Accordingly, jury instruction 18 is more
                     or less correct. It states that a person's status as a joint account holder by
                     itself says nothing about who owns the money within the account or who
                     can use it for their own personal benefit. That's manifestly true. Status as
                     a joint account holder may constitute evidence pointing to ownership of the
                     money. It may even create a rebuttable presumption of joint tenancy in
                     some cases. But no legal conclusion can be drawn from the status itself,
                     without anything more.
                                 Although jury instruction 18 is poorly worded (including an
                     obvious grammar and punctuation error), in substance it's a reasonable
                     approximation of the law. It probably would have been more accurate had
                     it stated that "a person's status as a joint account holder does not by itself
                     provide lawful authority to use or transfer the assets in the account for their
                     own benefit," or perhaps "a person's status as a joint account holder does
                     not by itself convey legal ownership of the funds deposited in the account."
                     But it's not that far off the mark I do not think the district court erred in
                     giving it, and therefore reversal is not warranted.

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10) 1947D    alZ;D
                 :                                         20
                                                        VII.
                               Even if one could read NRS 100.085 as broadly as Natko
                   proposes—to make the name on a bank account single-handedly preempt
                   any other principle of property ownership—I would still affirm the
                   conviction. Without a transcript of the trial, we have no idea what the State
                   or Natko proved about the money in the bank account or the victim's
                   capacity or intent to convey it. We also don't know whether jury instruction
                   18 related to the evidence introduced at trial or whether it may have been
                   entirely superfluous and irrelevant to everything that happened below.
                   Those gaps requires affirmance.
                               But there's more. The central issue in this case appeared to be
                   that, at the time the joint account was created, the victim may have lacked
                   the mental capacity to make any serious financial decisions. If the trial
                   evidence confirmed this (we can only guess), the jury could have concluded
                   that the establishment of the joint bank account itself occurred without the
                   victim's legal consent, and if so, then any withdrawal from it thereafter was
                   either void or at least voidable due to the victim's lack of capacity. If the
                   account itself and any deposit into it or withdrawals from it were legally
                   void, then Natko never legally owned the money even under her theory of
                   NRS 100.085, because the victim lacked the mental capacity to give it to
                   her. A rational jury could have concluded that Natko committed theft and
                   exploitation by inducing the victim to convert his money into joint tenancy
                   and thereby gift it to her at a time when he had no legal capacity to agree,
                   and I would affirm on this basis as well as for the other reasons set forth
                   herein.

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                                                        21
                                                        VHI.
                                For all of these reasons, I respectfully dissent. At common law,
                    joint tenants could not steal from each other. But joint bank account holders
                    might be able to, because not every joint bank account holder is necessarily
                    a joint tenant to every penny ever deposited in the account by anyone at any
                    time. In the absence of a trial transcript we simply do not know whether
                    Natko was a joint tenant to the money deposited into the account, or
                    whether she might have been a joint account holder without being a joint
                    tenant. Consequently, we do not know whether any error occurred, and I
                    would affirm the conviction.

                                                       Tao
                                                               le
                                                                Atr e                   J.

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PP 1947E    412To                                        22