One of two death sentences against murderer upheld

Monday, Jan. 26, 1998 | 10:42 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court cancelled one of two death sentences given Joseph W. Smith of Henderson but upheld the other.

Smith was sentenced to death in April 1996 for the strangulation and hammer slaying of his two stepdaughters, Wendy J. Cox, 20, and Kristy Cox, 12, in their Green Valley home in October 1990.

Smith was originally convicted of killing his two stepdaughters and his wife Judith Smith, 47. He was sentenced to life in prison for the killing of his wife and given the death penalty for the murders of his two stepdaughters.

The Supreme Court overturned the death penalty and ordered a new sentencing hearing. A jury in April 1996 came back with the same sentences.

In this appeal, the court found that a jury instruction given by District Judge Jeffrey Sobel was wrong. Justice Miriam Shearing, who wrote the majority decision, said the jury instruction on depravity of mind in the case of Kristy Cox failed to include the required elements of torture or mutilation.

It ordered Smith's sentence for the murder of Kristy Cox be reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But the death penalty still stands for the murder of Wendy Cox.

Chief Justice Charles Springer dissented from the majority opinion, saying the death penalty should also have been voided in the case of Wendy Cox. He wrote, "The death penalty is based entirely upon mutilation as the sole aggravating factor. The definition of mutilation given by the court is incomplete and lacks the element of specific intent."

In another ruling, the court upheld the murder conviction of Wilbert Leslie, sentenced to death for the killing of a clerk in a 7-Eleven store in Las Vegas in August 1994.

The victim was Nellis Air Force Sgt. William Prewitt, who was moonlighting as a clerk at the store when a man came into the store and demanded money. Prewitt opened the cash register and the assailant reached in, grabbed the money, backed away, and then shot Prewitt in the chest.

Shearing, in the majority decision, rejected claims there was misconduct by the district attorney's office during the trial and penalty hearing. She also said District Judge Stephen Huffaker did not make an error when he permitted the introduction of evidence of Leslie's character during the penalty hearing.

The court said the death sentence in this case "was not excessive and was not imposed under the influence of passion or prejudice."