Court briefs for June 4, 2002

Tuesday, June 4, 2002 | 8:23 a.m.

Murder suspect to stand trial

A Las Vegas man charged in the killing of a prostitute two years ago has been deemed competent and will stand trial Nov. 26.

District Judge Lee Gates on Monday declared Vornelius Phillips competent after reading psychiatric reports prepared while Phillips was being evaluated at a state mental health facility in Sparks.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas told Gates that doctors believe Phillips has been faking a mental illness in order to delay his trial.

Phillips, 26, is accused of beating Ivy Jean Miller to death April 21, 2000, and then, later that day, running down and critically injuring Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Robert Kintzel during a high-speed chase.

Appeal denied in Renata's slayings

The Nevada Supreme Court Monday rejected the appeal of Ruel S. Mercado, who was sentenced to two consecutive life prison terms without the possibility of parole plus 85 years for the shooting of a cashier during the robbery of a Henderson bar.

Mercado was convicted of 19 counts after he and other gang members held up Renata's Supper Club in a robbery in which the bartender and the cashier were shot to death.

Mercado was identified as the gunman who killed 54-year-old Gerald Serna, the cashier, as the gang fled the club in November 1994.

In his petition Mercado claimed his trial attorney was deficient in four areas and his attorney in his first appeal to the Supreme Court was ineffective in 19 ways.

The court denied most of the petition. But it ordered District Judge Kathy Hardcastle to appoint a lawyer to represent Mercado to look at whether there was sufficient evidence to convict on the counts of robbery and kidnapping.

Reinstatement of conviction sought

A deputy district attorney urged the Nevada Supreme Court Monday to reinstate a first-degree murder conviction against Desmond Fleming, who was convicted of stabbing his girlfriend to death in Las Vegas.

Deputy District Attorney Abbi Silver argued that District Judge Jeff Sobel was wrong when he granted Fleming a new trial because of a faulty jury instruction.

Defense lawyer David Schieck told the court that Sobel recognized after the trial the jury instruction was in error and granted the new trial because it was a close call between first- and second-degree murder.

The instruction told the jury how to determine premeditation that is necessary for first-degree murder. The Nevada Supreme Court had ruled a year earlier that the language had to be changed.

Fleming was convicted of the 2000 fatal stabbing of Priscilla Garvin.

Appeal made in hotel room death

A defense attorney told the Nevada Supreme Court Monday that evidence was improperly kept out of the Las Vegas murder trial of Curtis Barker, convicted of killing another man in a hotel room.

Howard S. Brooks, a deputy public defender, said a statement made by Barker to police about the circumstances of the crime should have been introduced by the prosecution as evidence. That statement, he said, showed that the victim, Roy Powell, provoked the incident in The Orleans.

Barker told police that Powell attacked him with a lamp. Barker knocked Powell out and beat and kicked him to death. He was convicted of first-degree murder.

Brooks said the evidence would have resulted in a conviction of either second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.

The court took the arguments under submission and will rule later.