Thursday, April 12, 2012 | 3:43 p.m.
CARSON CITY - The Nevada Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of Robert L. Bellon, who sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing a Las Vegas man in October 1995.
Bellon claimed his trial attorney was ineffective for failing to argue that Bellon had acted in self defense in the killing of Frankie Dunlap, who was shot twice while in a car.
The Supreme Court overturned the first-degree murder conviction of Bellon once on ground that improper evidence was admitted that he had made threats to police when he was arrested. But Bellon was convicted again of first-degree murder after a second trial.
The court said Bellon failed to show the outcome of the second trial would have been different if self defense had been argued. It said the evidence of Bellon's "guilt and his premeditation was substantial and strong."
The court also rejected Bellon's argument that the other two men in the car either framed him or got him drunk so he would shoot Dunlap. He claimed the Dunlap and the other two witnesses were members of rival gangs.
In another ruling Thursday, the court rejected the appeal of Norman J. Crew, sentenced to four consecutive life terms for the shooting of two men in a failed drug deal in Las Vegas in March 1981.
The court noted that Crew is raising the current petition nearly 26 years after his first appeal was denied. Crew maintained he just found out about the potential misconduct of a juror.
Even if the long delay was not a bar, the court said Crew cannot prove juror misconduct "as it relates to the state of mind and mental processes of the jurors in reaching the verdict."
Crew and his brother Russell were found guilty of the fatal shooting of Michael Nasse and Theodore "Teddy" Zappa Jr., slitting their throats and burying them in a shallow grave near Lake Mead.
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