Ruling could give death-row inmates a second chance

Prosecutors have asked the Nevada Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling that limits the way prosecutors can seek the death penalty. The ruling could give many of the state's death row inmates a chance at a new sentence.

The practice of charging a person with first-degree murder for a killing that occurs while another felony is being committed - such as a robbery, kidnapping or sexual assault - and then using that same charge as an aggravator to seek a death sentence, is unconstitutional, the justices ruled Dec. 29.

The court has not indicated whether it will rehear the case. It also did not make clear whether the ruling applied retroactively to all death row inmates who were charged under the felony murder-aggravator system.

Las Vegas Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Owens and the Washoe County district attorney's office requested a new hearing on the ruling in a brief filed with the Supreme Court in January.

Prosecutors say the ruling reverses a commonly used system that has been in place for 20 years.

"We're still trying to sort this out, but the impacts could be huge," Owens said. "It has given a lot of people on death row new grounds for a challenge."

But defense lawyers say the decision was long overdue.

"It's an argument I've been making for quite some time that those factors should not be double-counted," said Washoe County Deputy Public Defender Cheryl Bond. "It's a necessary change to the state's capital-sentencing scheme because double counting was inappropriate, unfair and unconstitutional."

The ruling was in response to an automatic appeal by Robert McConnell of Reno, who pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to death for killing his former girlfriend's fiance, Brian Pierce. The high court affirmed McConnell's conviction and sentence, but also ruled that one of Nevada's 14 aggravators in death penalty cases is unconstitutional.