Killer escapes death penalty again after second conviction

Bill Gang

Friday, July 23, 1999 | 10:49 a.m.

Although he was convicted Thursday of committing his second murder, Bryan Keith Robinson again escaped the death penalty.

Robinson's conviction for second-degree murder precludes the possibility of the death penalty and also takes away the option of a life prison term without the possibility of parole.

That, however, is the sentence he was given after his conviction earlier this year for his role in the first murder.

Prosecutors will have two other chances to saddle Robinson with the ultimate punishment because he is still charged with murder in the shooting deaths of two other men in separate incidents.

Prosecutors had been planning to ask the jury to give Robinson the death penalty had he been convicted of first-degree murder for the Nov. 14, 1996, slaying of Germaine McKines at a North Las Vegas condominium complex. But the jury, after two days of deliberations, called it second-degree murder.

When he is sentenced Sept. 9 by Chief District Judge Lee Gates, Robinson will be given 50 years or life with parole possible only after he has served 20 years.

During Robinson's trial a woman living in the Cheyenne Condominiums, at 3301 Civic Center Drive, said she saw Robinson level a pistol at McKines and fire several shots, but jurors indicated after the verdict that they had problems with her credibility.

But there were other witnesses who also connected Robinson to the slaying.

Testimony at the trial indicated Robinson had confronted McKines in the middle of a street and demanded that he swear allegiance to a particular rap group. When McKines wouldn't, Robinson is said to have vowed to kill him.

A moment later gunfire erupted, although testimony was contradictory about who fired the fatal shots.

McKines died from seven or eight bullet wounds.

Trials have not been scheduled for the remaining two murder charges against Robinson.