Moore v. State

754 P.2d 841, 104 Nev. 113, 1988 Nev. LEXIS 20

• Court: Nevada Supreme Court
• Decided: May 18, 1988
• Docket: 17900
• Status: Published

Opinions

OPINION

By the Court,

Springer, J.:

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction and the subsequent sentence of death. Once again we are faced with the problematic issue of prosecutorial misconduct. In support of his claim of a fundamentally unfair trial, Randolph Moore submits more than twenty alleged incidents of prosecutorial misconduct occurring at his penalty hearing.

Randolph Moore, Dale Flanagan and two others were jointly tried and subsequently convicted of the murders of Carl and Colleen Gordon. The underlying facts of this case have been adequately set forth in our opinion in the case of Flanagan v. State, 104 Nev. 105, 754 P.2d 836 (1988). In addition, a substantial portion of the incidents of prosecutorial misconduct currently propounded by Randolph Moore have been directly addressed in the Flanagan opinion. Having meticulously reviewed Moore’s claims of misconduct and for the reasons set forth in Flanagan, we conclude that Moore was indeed denied a fair penalty hearing.

We have carefully examined Moore’s remaining assignments of error concerning the judgment of conviction and find them to be without merit. However, the cumulative effect of the prosecutor’s extensive misconduct at the penalty hearing is of such magnitude as to render Moore’s penalty hearing fundamentally unfair. Accordingly, we reverse Moore’s sentence and remand this case for a new penalty hearing. In all other respects, we affirm the judgment of conviction.

Young and Mowbray, JJ., concur.