Leonard v. State

• Decision Date: 09 December 1998
• Docket Number: No. 31151,31151
• Citation: 114 Nev. 1196,969 P.2d 288
• Parties: Gregory N. LEONARD, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

Page 288

969 P.2d 288

114 Nev. 1196

Gregory N. LEONARD, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

No. 31151.

Supreme Court of Nevada.

Dec. 9, 1998.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 4, 1999.

Michael A. Cherry, Special Public Defender, Mark B. Bailus and Peter R. LaPorta, Deputy Special Public Defenders, Las Vegas, for Appellant.

Frankie Sue Del Papa, Attorney General, Carson City; Stewart L. Bell, District Attorney, James Tufteland, Chief Deputy District Attorney, and Peggy Leen, Deputy District Attorney, Clark County, for Respondent.

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction of one count each of robbery and first degree murder, and from a sentence of death. Appellant Gregory N. Leonard raises numerous claims of error, none of which warrant reversal of his conviction or sentence. ¹

FACTS

Appellant Gregory N. Leonard worked as maintenance supervisor at the Mark Twain Apartments in Las Vegas. He lived in a small apartment next to the maintenance shop. The victim in this case, Thomas Benjamin Williams, was a tenant in the same apartment complex. Williams and appellant, occasional drinking companions, became involved in a dispute over a $3,548.00 poker machine jackpot. On November 25, 1994, the evening before the night Williams was killed, a bartender separated the two during a loud argument over the winnings.

Williams and Phyllis Fineberg, a reputed prostitute, were engaged to be married. On November 25, 1994, Fineberg borrowed Williams' car for about one-half hour, but did not return it for several hours. When she returned, the couple argued. Fineberg left Williams' apartment and went to the apartment of her friend Lynn Spencer in the same complex. Shortly thereafter, Williams called Spencer's apartment, told Fineberg he was going across the street to P.T.'s Pub for a drink, and went to the pub.

Ten to fifteen minutes later, Fineberg appeared at the pub but did not sit with Williams. Fineberg won a $200.00 poker jackpot and slipped the money into Williams' shirt pocket. About one-half hour later, Fineberg left the pub and returned to Spencer's apartment.

Later that night, at around 12:15 a.m., Fineberg returned to the pub. She approached Williams, who was sitting at the bar between Frank Deschene and appellant. Williams was intoxicated, and the bartenders, Kassey Leonard and Albert Garkow, had stopped serving him alcohol. Williams and Fineberg argued. Garkow tried to separate them because their argument was disturbing other customers. According to Garkow, Williams had pretty much broken off his relationship with Fineberg. At one point, Fineberg told Garkow to keep Williams away from her or she was "gonna kill him." At trial, Fineberg denied saying this. Fineberg reached into Williams' shirt pocket and retrieved the money she had placed there earlier that evening.

Fineberg returned to the bank of poker machines. Appellant approached her and asked her to return the money she had taken from Williams' pocket. Fineberg refused, and appellant sat back down next to Williams.

Garkow asked Deschene and appellant to help Williams across the street to his apartment because he felt Williams was too drunk to walk alone. Fineberg was not comfortable with this arrangement and followed them to Williams' apartment. Fineberg saw Deschene walk Williams across the street. After Williams opened the door to his apartment, Fineberg asked Deschene to leave. Deschene refused, and Fineberg called 911. Thereafter, when appellant arrived at the apartment, Fineberg again called 911. Deschene and appellant then left the area.

Williams and Fineberg continued to argue for a few minutes. As Fineberg was leaving, she encountered a police officer responding to her 911 calls. At Williams' request, the officer patted down Fineberg and confirmed that she had no key to the apartment.

Fineberg spent the night at Spencer's apartment and called Williams the next morning. When Williams did not answer, she proceeded back to his apartment. Upon arrival, she noticed that the heater was not on and that the door was unlocked. Fineberg then entered the apartment and found Williams lying on the floor, wearing the same clothes as the night before. Fineberg returned to Spencer's apartment, dialed 911 and reported the death.

The police found Williams' body lying face up on the floor. Initially, the officers believed that Williams had died of natural causes and began processing the body and death scene as a natural death. After a mortuary attendant discovered a ligature mark around Williams' neck, the police called homicide detectives and secured the scene.

There were no initial suspects, no signs of forced entry into the apartment, and no suspicious fingerprints. There was a contusion consistent with blunt force trauma on Williams' left scalp. The position of the contusion was indicative of a blow to the head, not a fall. A ligature had been wrapped around his neck several times.

An autopsy revealed signs of death by asphyxiation, including a fractured bone in Williams' neck. Dr. Robert Jordan, who performed the autopsy, concluded that the cause of death was asphyxia due to ligature strangulation and the manner of death was homicide. Dr. Jordan estimated that Williams was killed between 1:00 a.m. and 9:45 a.m. on November 26, 1994.

A few days later, Williams' son, Doug Williams, arrived from Texas to retrieve his father's belongings. Appellant and Jesus Cintron, another maintenance worker at the Mark Twain Apartments, let him into Williams' apartment and helped him move things. Doug Williams gave appellant and Cintron some of Williams' furniture and possessions.

After returning to Texas and inventorying his father's possessions, Doug Williams noticed that some of his father's jewelry and guns were missing. He informed the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Later, after being notified of the jackpot dispute between appellant and Williams, Detective Michael J. Bryant of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department ran appellant's name on the pawn shop data base. Detective Bryant discovered that appellant had pawned two rings, a Remington shotgun and a video camera which belonged to Williams.

On December 30, 1994, Detective Bryant interviewed appellant. When asked about the night Williams died, appellant told the detective he had socialized with Williams at the pub. The last time appellant saw Williams was at Williams' apartment door. Williams was with a woman and another man. When asked if he had received any property from Williams, appellant said that Williams' son had given him "some stuff." A search, pursuant to a search warrant, of appellant's apartment on January 4, 1995, revealed several boxes of ammunition that fit Williams' guns.

According to Cintron, appellant had keys to every apartment in the complex. At trial, appellant denied having a key to Williams' apartment, and said he had purchased the pawned rings and shotgun from strangers on the street.

On January 22, 1995, appellant paged Cintron and asked Cintron to come and help him "or else ten more people [sic] going to die." ² Cintron called appellant's pager. Appellant returned the call. Cintron recognized appellant's voice, and Cintron's caller I.D. indicated Mark Twain Apartments, where appellant used the telephone in the maintenance shop. When Cintron refused to come and help, appellant said he would kill Cintron and several other people. Appellant also told Cintron that he "did [Williams] too."

Cintron reported this conversation to the police. Cintron brought his beeper to a police station and played appellant's message for the police officers. After listening to the message several times the officers returned the beeper to Cintron without recording the message.

On January 23, 1995, as a result of Cintron's report, the police obtained another search warrant and again searched appellant's apartment. They found pawn shop receipts in a wallet belonging to Jerry Leonard, appellant's cousin. The receipts were for a diamond ring that had been pawned by Jerry Leonard on November 30, 1994.

When Detective Bryant asked appellant about the pawned items and the ammunition found in his apartment, appellant said he had purchased the items on the street. It is known to the police that people often sold stolen goods on the street where appellant lived.

The police arrested appellant. He was charged with one count each of first degree murder, robbery and burglary. The jury found appellant guilty of one count each of first degree murder and robbery.

Appellant called several witnesses in the penalty phase. Lori Knight, the manager of the Mark Twain Apartments, testified that appellant was a good employee; he put a lot of effort into his work, did extra things, and always made sure "the job was done." She also testified that she knew of appellant's friendship with Williams and, when she informed appellant and Cintron of Williams' death, appellant became upset.

Appellant's mother testified that appellant had spoken to her often about Williams. She said appellant was devastated that Williams was murdered because he considered Williams a "fatherly figure." The state elicited from appellant's fiancee that appellant has the AIDS virus.

The state presented testimony at the penalty hearing by a detective concerning his investigation of another murder with which appellant was charged, in which appellant apparently kept the body of the victim under his bed for a period of time. Williams' son and daughter gave victim impact testimony at the penalty hearing.

The jury found one aggravating circumstance, that the murder was committed while the person was engaged in the commission of or attempt to commit a robbery. See NRS 200.033(4). It found as a mitigating circumstance that appellant had no significant history of prior criminal activity, and found one or more other, unspecified mitigating circumstances. See NRS 200.035(1) and (7). The jury found no mitigating...