Killer’s death penalty trial to continue

Monday, Sept. 28, 1998 | 11 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court has allowed the Clark County district attorney's office to proceed with its efforts to seek the death penalty for Bryan K. Robinson, convicted of a Las Vegas killing.

The penalty hearing is scheduled to start today for Robinson, found guilty of the killing of Tracy Kennedy in September 1996.

In a 3-2 decision, the court Friday found District Judge Lee Gates had abused his discretion in granting a defense motion to strike an aggravating circumstance to be used by the district attorney's office in trying to show the jury it should return the death penalty.

The prosecution is seeking to prove that Robinson's action created a risk to the lives of others. It is the only aggravating circumstance to be presented. A jury must find that aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances in death penalty cases.

Robinson and Darrick Hilliard, after an argument with others outside the Cheyenne Condominium Complex in Las Vegas on Sept. 21, 1996, started to chase two men. Robinson caught up with Kennedy and knocked him out. Robinson and Hilliard pursued Jacques Tellis, firing shots at him. But Tellis got away.

Robinson and Hilliard returned to where Kennedy was being helped by Dennis Henderson. Hilliard fired five shots into the chest of the unconscious Kennedy. Henderson also was wounded but escaped.

Gates said the aggravating circumstance to be used by the state refers to "when somebody is shooting into a crowd, setting off a bomb, setting a house on fire where there are a number of people in there." The court said that was too narrow an interpretation.

Chief Justice Charles Springer and Justice Miriam Shearing dissented, saying Gates properly exercised his discretion in stopping the aggravating circumstance from being presented to the jury.