Edwards v. State
Edwards v. State
Opinion of the Court
OPINION
Appellant Johnny Howard Edwards, Jr., appeals his judgment of conviction, upon a jury verdict, of one count of possession of a firearm by an ex-felon. He contends that because he offered to stipulate to his ex-felon status, the district court erred in denying his motion to exclude the records of his prior felony convictions offered by the State to demonstrate his ex-felon status. We agree. In accord with the United States Supreme Court decision in Old Chief v. United States,
FACTS
On December 22, 2002, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Officers Mark Harding and Gabriel Lebario investigated a complaint of suspected drug activity at the apartment of Latoya Adams. Several people, including appellant Edwards, were present in the apartment when the officers arrived. Adams informed Officer Harding that she was in possession of marijuana for her personal use and granted the officers permission to confiscate it. While Officer Lebario followed Adams into the bedroom to retrieve the marijuana, Officer Harding ran a background check on the other individuals in the apartment and discovered that Edwards was an ex-felon.
As Adams removed a box containing the marijuana from her closet, she exposed a silver handgun. She informed Officer Lebario that the gun belonged to her brother, who had given it to her for protection because she lived in a high-crime neighborhood. When questioned, Edwards offered the same explanation but admitted that he had moved the gun from the top shelf of the closet to the bottom shelf in order to conceal it when he heard the police arrive. Edwards acknowledged that as an ex-felon, he was not supposed to be around firearms.
The State indicted Edwards on one count of possession of a firearm by an ex-felon. Prior to trial, Edwards’ counsel offered to stipulate to his status as an ex-felon to prevent the State from introducing his prior felony convictions for attempted bribery or intimidation of a witness, attempted possession of a firearm by an ex-felon, possession of a firearm by an ex-felon, and possession of a controlled substance. The prosecutor refused to enter into the stipulation, explaining in part:
[Fjactually, what we have here is I think a real danger for jury nullification, that they might attempt to ignore the clear language of the law and give somebody a break where the circumstances are such that the defendant didn’t own the gun ... it was actually owned by someone else. ... So we’ve got a jury wanting to be sympathetic to somebody. They hear he’s an ex-felon, and they don’t know what for, and they don’t know how many times he’s an ex-felon. . . . But where we have somebody who’s been convicted four times of felonies and for ex-felon in possession of a firearm, I think the jury is*381 going to look at those facts differently and say, he knew better.
The district court rejected Edwards’ stipulation and ruled that the State could introduce all four of his prior convictions; Edwards’ prior judgments of conviction were subsequently admitted at trial. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found Edwards guilty of ex-felon in possession of a firearm. The district court sentenced him to serve a term of 24 to 60 months in the Nevada State Prison. This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
Admission of the records of Edwards’ prior convictions
Edwards contends that the district court erred in rejecting his offer to stipulate to his ex-felon status and in permitting the State to introduce into evidence the records of his prior felony convictions to prove his ex-felon status. We conclude that the district court abused its discretion in rejecting Edwards’ proffered stipulation and in thereafter permitting the State to present the records of the prior felony convictions to the jury for the sole purpose of proving Edwards’ ex-felon status.
This court addressed a substantially similar issue in Sanders v. State.
Although our holding in Sanders specifically referenced the defendant’s robbery charge in concluding that admission of his prior convictions was excessively prejudicial, where, as here, a defendant is on trial for a single count of ex-felon in possession of a firearm, we conclude that the probative value of introducing a defendant’s prior judgment of conviction solely to prove his ex-felon status is likewise unduly prejudicial if the defendant offers to stipulate to that status.
Subsequent to this court’s decision in Sanders, the United States Supreme Court concluded in Old Chief v. United States that a federal district court abused its discretion in permitting the Government to admit a defendant’s prior conviction into evidence where the defendant had offered to stipulate to his ex-felon status.
In concluding that the federal district court abused its discretion, the Supreme Court extensively analyzed the issue under Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence.
[Tjhere is no cognizable difference between the evidentiary significance of an admission and of the legitimately probative component of the official record the prosecution would prefer to place in evidence. For purposes of the Rule 403 weighing of the probative against the prejudicial, the functions of the competing evidence are distinguishable only by the risk inherent in the one and wholly absent from the other. In this case, as in any other in which the prior conviction is for an offense likely to support conviction on some improper ground, the only reasonable conclusion was that the risk of unfair prejudice did substantially outweigh the discounted probative value of the record of conviction, and it was an abuse of discretion to admit the record when an admission was available.13
Given the similarities between the federal rule at issue in Old Chief and the equivalent Nevada provision, we conclude that the Court’s analysis is compelling. More specifically, like its federal counterpart, NRS 48.035(1) provides that “[although relevant, evidence is not admissible if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, of confusion of the issues or of misleading the jury.” In the instant case, two of Edwards’ prior convictions were for the same, or substantially the same crime, as that for which he was accused, and the danger of unfair prejudice was clear. In our view, the State’s argument below respecting jury nullification failed to establish a convincing, valid reason why acceptance of Edwards’ concession of his ex-felon status, rather than the admission of the actual records of his prior convictions, would have hindered the effectiveness of its case.
The State contends, however, that Edwards’ prior convictions were relevant as proof of knowledge of the law or absence of mistake.
Evidence of corpus delicti
Other than the fact of his prior convictions, the State’s evidence against Edwards at trial consisted entirely of his admission to a police officer that he moved the gun several feet. It has long been black letter law in Nevada that the corpus delicti of a crime must be proven independently of the defendant’s extrajudicial admissions.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse Edwards’ conviction, and we remand this matter to the district court with instructions to vacate the conviction.
519 U.S. 172 (1997).
96 Nev. 341, 609 P.2d 324 (1980).
Id. at 343, 609 P.2d at 326 (quoting People v. Morrison, 136 Cal. Rptr. 650, 652 (Ct. App. 1977) (quoting People v. Robles, 466 P.2d 710, 715 (Cal. 1970))).
Rule 403 provides: “Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.”
See Sanders, 96 Nev. at 344, 609 P.2d at 326.
See NRS 48.045(2).
See Taylor v. State, 109 Nev. 849, 854, 858 P.2d 843, 846 (1993) (holding that the State may not admit character evidence to rebut a defense that the accused has not yet raised).
See NRS 50.095.
Compare NRS 202.360(1)(a), with 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). See also Old Chief, 519 U.S. at 190.
We are unable to conclude that the district court’s error was harmless. See Sanders, 96 Nev. at 344, 609 R2d at 326; Richmond v. State, 118 Nev. 924, 934, 59 P.3d 1249, 1255 (2002) (providing that failure to exclude evidence is harmless when evidence of guilt is overwhelming).
Doyle v. State, 112 Nev. 879, 892, 921 P.2d 901, 910 (1996) (citing Hooker v. Sheriff, 89 Nev. 89, 506 P.2d 1262 (1973)), overruled on other grounds by Kaczmarek v. State, 120 Nev. 314, 91 P.3d 16 (2004).
See Green v. State, 119 Nev. 542, 545, 80 P.3d 93, 95 (2003) (defining “plain” error).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- JOHNNY HOWARD EDWARDS, JR. v. THE STATE OF NEVADA
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- 2 cases
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- Published