New trial denied in ‘86 death

Kim Smith

Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001 | 8:40 a.m.

A death-row inmate who had hoped a new DNA test would free him has lost a bid for a new trial.

Paul Browning will now take his fight to the Nevada Supreme Court, said Brian Martin, the San Diego attorney who represents him.

In a brief, written decision released Wednesday, Senior District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski denied a new trial, saying DNA evidence was not enough to offset the "overwhelming evidence" in the case.

Browning, 46, was convicted in 1986 of stabbing Hugo Elsen, 60, to death during a robbery. He has spent the past 15 years on death row. Prosecutors argued that Browning went into Elsen's Las Vegas Boulevard South store on Nov. 8, 1985, because he needed money to bail his girlfriend -- a prostitute -- out of jail.

Browning, then 30, was arrested after two acquaintances, Randy and Vanessa Wolfe, called police and said that Browning had confessed to them.

The Wolfes, both ex-convicts and drug abusers, led police to the murder weapon, jewelry and a bloody jacket and later testified against Browning.

Browning, whose fingerprints were found inside the store, was also identified by Elsen's wife, Josy.

Jurors convicted Browning after deliberating an hour.

A DNA test performed in the summer of 2000, however, proves the blood on the jacket was not Elsen's. Nor is it Browning's.

As a result, the California law firm of Brobeck, Phlegert and Harrison asked Pavlikowski last week to grant Browning a new trial.

The defense attorney believes that jurors may not have convicted Browning if then-prosecutor Dan Seaton hadn't told the jury that the blood was Elsen's.

Pavlikowski said there is "insufficient evidence to grant a new trial in this matter in light of the Nevada Supreme Court's prior rulings as to the overwhelming evidence to support the jury's verdict in this case."