Court Opinion

ID: 9553504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:30:33.82644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:20.338316
License: Public Domain

Springer, J.,
dissenting:
The felony-murder conviction cannot stand unless Guy robbed his fellow-drug dealer, Evans. The drugs that are the subject of the supposed robbery never belonged to Evans; and, therefore, Evans could never have been robbed of the drugs. This case is, plainly and simply, a case of one drug dealer killing another. It was Pendleton and not Guy who heartlessly shot and killed Evans in cold blood.
It is very difficult to discover what really happened in this case because the principals to the episode did not testify. There is no evidence, certainly no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, as to the events that preceded Pendleton’s shooting Evans. The following is about the best that one can derive from the record as to what happened: Evans, the decedent, was without any money with which to buy drugs. Evans told Guy and Guy’s friend, Pendleton, where they could go to buy some cocaine. For this information, Guy and Pendleton told Evans that they would give him “a portion of the drugs they [Guy and Pendleton] would purchase.” (Majority Opinion at 773; emphasis added.)
The trio drove to the place where Evans told them that they could purchase drugs. It is possible, but not at all clear, that Evans made the actual purchase of the drugs; but if he did so, he *787clearly did it as the agent of Guy and Pendleton, who had the wherewithal to make the buy. Evans delivered the cocaine to Pendleton and Guy and off they went in a car driven by Guy, with Evans harboring the hopeful expectation that he would be given a portion of the cocaine for his trouble in arranging for the purchase.
The ill-fated Evans got out of the car to relieve himself. When Guy started to drive off without him, Evans tried to gain entry back into the car by “clinging to the door frame.” (Id.) For reasons known only to Pendleton, Pendleton shot Evans in the abdomen and killed him. Now, strangely, Guy, not Pendleton, is facing the lethal needle for shooting Evans. I do not understand how anyone can make a felony-murder out of these very poorly-established facts.
“The felony-murder rule simply stated is that any homicide, committed while perpetrating or attempting a felony, is first degree murder.” Payne v. State, 81 Nev. 503, 505, 406 P.2d 922, 924 (1965). As I see it, Pendleton is clearly guilty of intentional, premeditated, first-degree murder. Guy committed neither homicide nor robbery. Neither Pendleton nor Guy did anything that even remotely approaches robbery. They possibly could be said to be guilty of “perpetrating” a breach of contract, that is refusal to abide by their promise to give Evans a promised reward; although it is not clear from the facts of this case that even this promise was made by Pendleton and Guy to Evans. Even if we were allowed to assume that Evans was trying to get back into the car in order to enforce his interest in the contraband that had supposedly been promised to him, then, at most, Pendleton’s shooting of Evans was done in order to avoid Evans’s attempt to claim some executory, undivided and completely unspecified interest in the cocaine. This certainly does not constitute robbery.1
Evans had no identifiable claim of any kind to the cocaine that was purchased by Pendleton and Guy. If he did, it is of a most vague and unenforceable nature, even if we put aside the illegality of such a transaction. Even if we were to say that Evans had an *788ownership interest or some other kind of right to immediate possession to a quantity of the contraband, there is still no possibility of making a robber out of either Guy or Pendleton. This is not a robbery and therefore not a “felony-murder”; so I would reverse Guy’s conviction.

 As far as I can see, the evidence does not establish just what Evans’s claimed undivided interest in the cocaine might have been — assuming that this is why Evans was trying to get back into the car. Maybe Evans was claiming a full one-third interest; or maybe Evans was claiming only the right to a few crumbs for his trouble. We do not know what either Pendleton or Guy told Evans they were going to give him for the tip. Not only do we not know the reason why Evans was trying to get back into the car, we have no idea of the nature or extent of Evans’s supposed claim against Pendleton and Guy. If Evans had indeed been robbed, we could not possibly know what the subject of the supposed robbery might be.