High court will focus on death penalties

Monday, Feb. 11, 2002 | 10:51 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The state Supreme Court this week will hear the appeal of a man convicted for killing four people at a grocery store in 1999 in what the prosecutor called "the worst massacre in the history of Las Vegas."

The case of Zane Floyd, who received the death penalty, is one of two capital punishment convictions the high court will review this week. Justices also will hear six other appeals today through Wednesday.

The hearings come two weeks after a legislative committee began studying the use of the death penalty in the state. Those testifying before the legislative panel, which could recommend reform to next year's Legislature, said the deck is stacked against defendants in Nevada.

Floyd, whose Supreme Court hearing is set for Tuesday, was convicted on four counts of first-degree murder in a pre-dawn shooting at an Albertson's in June 1999.

This week Robert Miller, Floyd's lawyer, will ask the high court to reverse both the conviction and death penalty, arguing the trial should have been moved out of Las Vegas and prosecutors made mistakes.

Miller faulted the prosecutor's statement to the jury that the case was "worst massacre in the history of Las Vegas."

Thomas Darnell, Chuck Leos, Dennis Sargent and Luci Tarantino died in the shooting. Court documents said Tarantino pleaded for her life before Floyd shot her.

Floyd was also convicted of sexual assault of an escort service employee.

The 20-year-old woman came to his apartment several hours before the supermarket shooting. She said he put a shotgun to her head and forced her to have sex.

He reportedly emptied one shell from the gun and told the woman that her name was written on it.

In the other capital case, to be heard Wednesday, Fernando Hernandez was sentenced to death for the strangulation-stabbing of his ex-wife, Donna, in front of their 3-year-old daughter in October 1999.

Hernandez's lawyer, JoNell Thomas, will argue that the slaying of Donna Hernandez was at most a second-degree murder and that the court has failed to properly oversee the use of capital punishment.

In a pre-hearing brief Thomas wrote that the Supreme Court "has not used its supervisory power to assure that the death penalty is applied in a truly selective narrow class of cases."

In 100 direct appeals from death penalty cases, the Supreme Court has upheld 89, she pointed out.

It has used its authority only four times to vacate the death penalty and impose a life term without possibility of parole. The other seven cases were returned to the District Court for a second penalty hearing.

Supreme Courts in Florida and Georgia have exercised their authority to uphold death penalties only in the worst cases, Thomas said. For instance, the Supreme Court in Florida has vacated 38 percent of the death penalties, she said.

During his trial Hernandez maintained the murder of his wife was in a fit of passion. But witnesses said he had talked about killing his ex-wife several times before.

He was angry that another man was living in the house of the ex-wife, who had secured a protective order against Hernandez, according to court records.