Thursday, Aug. 29, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence for Sterling Atkins, found guilty of the beating death of a 20-year-old woman in Clark County.
The court rejected arguments by attorneys for Atkins that improper evidence was introduced at his trial and that the prosecution was guilty of misconduct.
Atkins and Anthony Doyle were sentenced to death for the Jan. 15, 1994, fatal beating of Ebony Mason in a remote area of Clark County. Atkins' brother Shawn received a life term and agreed to testify for the prosecution.
Shawn Atkins, arrested in Ohio by FBI agents, told them that Mason had sex with the brothers but refused to have anal sex with Doyle at a Las Vegas home. The four got in a pickup truck and drove to a remote area where Doyle raped Mason. And Shawn said his brother and Doyle beat and kicked Mason until she died.
At Sterling Atkins' trial, his brother testified that Sterling only kicked Mason in the foot to awaken her. The prosecution then introduced the statements Shawn made to the FBI in Ohio.
Atkins said those statements should not be admitted at his trial. But the Supreme Court backed up former District Judge Addeliar Guy in his ruling to allow the statements to be used.
Atkins, through his lawyers, also claimed the prosecution inflamed the jury with prejudicial remarks during the closing argument in the penalty hearing. But the court found no misconduct on the part of the district attorney's office.
The court did reverse the sexual assault conviction of Atkins. A four-inch twig had been inserted in the victim's rectum. But the court, in the majority decision written by Justice Miriam Shearing, said there was no evidence to show the penetration of the twig was done while the victim was alive.
The court, in a previous ruling, held that a person could not be convicted of sexual assault if the victim was dead. Justice Thomas Steffen dissented in that decision and also opposed the reversal in this case of sexual assault.
In another case, the high court, in a 4-1 decision, upheld the conviction of Garland Washington, accused of sexually assaulting his 15-year-old stepsister in Clark County in June 1993.
Washington received a 20-year prison term and was ordered to pay $1,000 to the Clark County Sexual Abuse Compensation Fund and directed to pay an unspecified amount for future counseling for the victim.
The court said the District Court must set a specific amount on the counseling cost and sent the case back to Judge Joseph Bonaventure to select a figure.
Justice Charles Springer dissented, saying Washington was entitled to a new trial because the victim was never able to identify him, there were prejudicial comments made by the prosecutor and that the only potential black was excluded from the jury.
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