Supreme Court rejects inmate’s request to die

By Cy Ryan (contact)

Friday, Nov. 26, 2004 | 9:27 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court has denied a Clark County inmate's request to be put to death.

Byron E. Crutcher said he'd rather be killed than continue serving his life sentence.

In his appeal to the state's highest court, Crutcher argued that "life in prison under the habitual offender sentence for non-violent crime is cruel and unusual punishment."

Crutcher was convicted of robbery of a person older than 65 in Clark County and was classified as a habitual criminal because of prior offenses including burglaries.

He first petitioned District Judge Nancy Saitta to order him to be executed by the state. She denied the appeal. The Supreme Court Wednesday rejected his appeal saying "no statute or rule of court" would permit the court to change his sentence to death.

In his petition, Crutcher, who has filed a number of court motions, says he cannot receive a fair hearing in the courts. His crime, he said was only pick-pocketing and yet the state "manipulated" it into a felony.

Crutcher, 48, said for the past 36 years he has not been off parole or probation. And he was first jailed at the age of 12. Now he says he has had enough of drugs, crime and prison and "continued incarceration is cruel and unusual punishment."

Because of his Mormon beliefs, he said he is prevented from committing suicide. If he takes his own life, Crutcher said he "will forever be condemned to being in hell."

In his petition, Crutcher, in prison at the Southern Desert Correctional Center near Indian Springs, denied he was a violent person and "he wishes to be put to death rather than spend his life in prison for non-violent crime."

In another ruling Wednesday, the court rejected the appeal of Frederick L. Steese, serving a life term without the possibility of parole. He was convicted in 1995 of the stabbing death of Gerald Soulos, who ran a pet poodle show at Circus Circus.

Steese maintained he was not informed of the sentencing options when he pleaded guilty to murder, robbery, burglary and grand larceny involving auto theft.

The Supreme Court said Steese filed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus more than five years after the court had rejected his first appeal. It said that petition failed to meet the deadline of one year. It also said that Steese's petition was successive because he had previously filed a similar petition.

In upholding the ruling of District Judge Lee Gates, the court said, "We conclude that Steese did not establish good cause for the untimely filing of his petition."

The court also rejected the appeal of Brian Sims, who was convicted when he entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder in Clark County. Sims claimed he had received new evidence from one of the witnesses to the murder. But the court said Sims filed his petition more than three years after his conviction, past the deadline.

Sims was arrested after the fatal shooting of Charles Clark Jr., 23, on Nov. 23, 1999. They were in an apartment on East Flamingo Road when an argument broke out. Clark was the former boyfriend of Sims' brother's girlfriend. Clark was shot in a car outside the building.