Wilcock (Patrick) v. State

CourtNevada Supreme Court
DecidedMay 29, 2015
Docket62804
StatusUnpublished

This text of Wilcock (Patrick) v. State (Wilcock (Patrick) v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nevada Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wilcock (Patrick) v. State, (Neb. 2015).

Opinion

testimony and evidence. He also argues that dismissal is mandated due to the violation of his right to a speedy trial; there was insufficient evidence to support the convictions for first-degree murder, burglary, and robbery; the district court erroneously instructed the jury on robbery and the presumption of innocence; and the convictions for possession of stolen property violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. Wilcock contends that these errors, cumulatively, are sufficient to warrant a new trial. Todd House's testimony Wilcock asserts that the district court erred when it denied his motion to exclude Todd House's testimony and subsequently allowed House to testify at trial. According to Wilcock, the district court should have excluded House's testimony based on the attorney-client privilege, because (1) House and Wilcock had an attorney-client relationship, (2) Wilcock reasonably believed that he was consulting with an attorney, and (3) Wilcock sought and received legal services from House. We review de novo a lower court's decision regarding the proper scope of the attorney-client privilege. Las Vegas Sands Corp. v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 69, 331 P.3d 905, 910 (2014). Here, both parties acknowledge that House is not an attorney authorized to practice law. Accordingly, the attorney-client privilege could only protect confidential communications between Wilcock and House if Wilcock held a reasonable belief that House was an attorney authorized to practice law. See NRS 49.065; NRS 49.095. Essentially, Wilcock argues that he believed that House was an attorney because House so informed him. However, this argument only shows that Wilcock believed that House was an attorney, not that such a belief was reasonable. See Strong v. State, 773 S.W.2d 543, 549 (Tex. SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA 2 (0) I947A Crim. App. 1989) (holding that invoking the attorney-client privilege "requires more than a mere belief that the individual consulted is a licensed attorney; that belief must be 'reasonable"). To determine whether Wilcock's belief was reasonable, we would need evidence of the characteristics of an attorney-client relationship. None exist. Wilcock failed to support his assertion with any evidence that, for example, House informed Wilcock that he had attended a certain law school, that he was licensed in a certain jurisdiction, or that he practiced in a certain area of law. Wilcock's contention that House provided legal services is also belied by the record. House testified that he never reviewed any of the documents or pleadings in Wilcock's case. Moreover, House's description of the conversations between himself and Wilcock (wherein Wilcock made hypothetical statements and spoke in the third person) similarly demonstrate that Wilcock did not reasonably believe that an attorney-client relationship existed. Lastly, Wilcock could not have reasonably believed that House could have represented him because at the time of their conversations House was incarcerated at CCDC awaiting sentencing for felony convictions. We therefore conclude that Wilcock failed to prove that he reasonably believed that House was an attorney and, consequently, the attorney-client privilege does not protect Wilcock's communications with House. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court properly admitted House's testimony at trial. Wilcock additionally argues that the court erred by failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing before denying his motion to exclude House's testimony. Wilcock did not request an evidentiary hearing or object to the district court's denial of his motion without having conducted an evidentiary hearing. Therefore, we review for plain error. See SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA 3 (0) 1947A ca4C41D Ouanbengboune v. State, 125 Nev. 763, 774, 220 P.3d 1122, 1129 (2009). While the Eighth Judicial District Court Rules allow a criminal defendant to file motions in limirte, see EDCR 3.28, evidentiary hearings are not required as a matter of course, Cohen v. United States, 378 F.2d 751, 760 (9th Cir. 1967). At the hearing on Wilcock's motion, the district court determined that even if the district court accepted Wilcock's assertions as true, his mistaken belief was not reasonable. Therefore, because the court found that there was not a dispute regarding any fact underlying its decision, we conclude that the court was not required to conduct an evidentiary hearing. Admitted evidence Wilcock argues that the district court erred by admitting certain evidence, including words from his cellular phone's user text dictionary and the tables of contents from several books Wilcock owned. A district court's decision to admit evidence is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. See Holmes v. State, 129 Nev. Adv. Op. 59, 306 P.3d 415, 418 (2013). The district court has considerable discretion to admit evidence and its determination will only be reversed if it is manifestly wrong. Id. The dynamic text dictionary from Wilcock's cellular phone Wilcock argues that the words from the dynamic text dictionary of his cellular phone, without context, were irrelevant, unfairly prejudicial, and invited speculation. Because the State claims that Wilcock entered the words into the phone, and thereby the phone's dictionary, it must provide authentication that Wilcock authored the words typed into the phone. See NRS 52.015. In Rodriguez v. State, 128 Nev. Adv. Op. 14, 273 P.3d 845, 849 (2012), we held that "when there has been an objection to SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA 4 (0) 1947A admissibility of a [cellular] text message, the proponent . . . [must] provide sufficient direct or circumstantial corroborating evidence of authorship in order to authenticate the text message as a condition precedent to its admission" (citations omitted). We based our conclusion on the reasoning that 'cellular telephones are not always exclusively used by the person to whom the phone number is assigned.' . . . Thus, some additional evidence, 'which tends to corroborate the identity of the sender, is required." Id. (quoting Commonwealth v. Koch, 39 A.3d 996, 1005 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2011). In this case, the authorship of the phone's dictionary listings is as unclear as the authorship of the text messages in Rodriguez. The State did not present any evidence that Wilcock was the person who entered the words into his phone; it merely established that the words in the dictionary were at one time entered into the phone by "the user." But the State did not establish the user's identity for any given entry. Likewise, the State did not offer the circumstantial evidence suggested in Rodriguez, such as "the context and content of the text." Id. at 849. We therefore conclude that the district court abused its discretion by admitting this evidence without sufficient authentication. Nevertheless, we conclude that the district court's error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Cortinas v. State, 124 Nev. 1013, 1023-24, 195 P.3d 315

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Wilcock (Patrick) v. State, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilcock-patrick-v-state-nev-2015.