Supreme Court orders new trial in 1995 killing

Friday, Aug. 12, 2005 | 9:22 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A man sentenced to life in prison without parole for a 1995 killing in Las Vegas will get a new trial because improper testimony was allowed at his trial, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The court said Robert L. Bellon's right to a fair trial was prejudiced by the testimony and the error was serious enough to overturn Bellon's first-degree murder conviction.

Bellon was found guilty of the fatal shooting of Frank T. Dunlap. Bellon had shot Dunlap twice the back while in a car, authorities said. Dunlap had been in the driver's seat of the car when he was shot and Bellon had been in the backseat.

Three years after the shooting Bellon was arrested in Lake Charles, La., on unrelated charges. His pregnant girlfriend was also arrested on a charge of being an accessory to murder.

Bellon then allegedly made a series of threats to detectives David Judice and Leslie Blanchard in Louisiana about his waiver of extradition to return to Nevada. At the Las Vegas trial, the detectives testified he threatened them about their families.

The Supreme Court said testimony about those alleged threats should not have been admitted at trial by District Judge Jackie Glass. It said the alleged threats, which never resulted in criminal charges, were not tied to the Nevada murder.

The court said under the law a witness may only testify to another uncharged act or crime if it is closely related to the crime that the defendant is charged with.

"These threats were not so interconnected with the events surrounding Dunlap's murder or Bellon's flight," the court said.

Justices said the prosecution could have introduced evidence that Bellon fled to Louisiana without referring to the threats. It could have presented testimony concerning statements Bellon made about the murder weapon and the sentence he might receive in Las Vegas.

Bellon told the detectives he would probably get a 20-year prison term and a plea bargain offer for second-degree murder. The court said there was substantial evidence to support the conviction of Bellon without introducing the flawed evidence.

-- In another case, the court ruled that time spent in house arrest cannot be counted to reduce a prison sentence.

Anna M. Jackson was convicted in Reno of driving under the influence of a prohibited substance, resulting in the death of Reno Police Officer Michael Schofield. The officer was knocked off his motorcycle by a car driven by Jackson in September 2002.

Before her trial, Jackson was on house arrest for 297 days. She was sentenced to two to eight years in prison and given credit towards her prison term by District Judge Janet Berry for the time spent in house arrest.

The Supreme Court, in reversing the 297 days house arrest credit towards the prison sentence, said Jackson "was free to leave her home on advance notice for matters such as grocery shopping, employment, laundry, medical appointments, counseling and courts appearances."

She was even permitted to travel to California to get married and to Las Vegas for a court deposition in a civil trial.

The court said, "We hold that house arrest does not constitute time 'actually spent in confinement' for which the duration of a sentence may be credited.

"In cases like this, where the defendant is subject to a mandatory prison term if convicted, the District Court might hesitate to impose house arrest as a condition of bail if the time spent on house arrest must be credited against the sentence."