Supreme court orders new trial in killing

Monday, March 6, 2000 | 11:22 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Kenneth Kelly, convicted of first-degree murder in the 1995 shooting death of his neighbor, Michael Shreve, after a dispute over water in a remote area of Clark County, is going to get a new trial.

A state Supreme Court panel, in a 2-1 decision, said District Judge Lee Gates incorrectly answered a question from the jury that effectively stopped jurors from reaching a verdict of a lesser second-degree murder conviction for Kelly, who was 64 years old at the time of the shooting in 1995.

At the time of the killing in Trout Canyon, about 30 miles from Las Vegas, Kelly and Shreve were neighbors. They had argued about water from Kelly's residence flooding Shreve's yard, court records say. Shreve went to turn off the water when he was shot to death in the Kelly's front yard.

Justice Miriam Shearing and Nancy Becker, who joined in the majority opinion, said Gates gave the correct jury instruction on the differences between first and second degree. When the jury asked for clarification, Shearing and Becker said Gates gave an explanation that had previously been approved by the court in another context.

In this case, however, the majority opinion of justices said, Gates' explanation was "given out of the context of other instructions at a crucial stage of deliberations."