Court: Nevada Supreme Court; May 1, 1986; Nevada; State Supreme Court
Sheila Ann Summers was convicted of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and sentenced to death after a jury found her guilty, determining that the crime exhibited depravity of mind. Key evidence against Summers included a suicide note that implicated her, which the court later found was improperly admitted, violating her constitutional rights and constituting reversible error. Consequently, the Supreme Court of Nevada reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial.
The case involved the murder of Joy Spinney, whose body was discovered on September 19, 1982, after being shot twice. Prior to her death, Spinney had been at the trailer of her friend Joan Mack, where she communicated multiple times with her husband, indicating she planned to stay overnight. Evidence revealed that Summers, house-sitting for Mack, denied knowing Spinney when police contacted her.
An acquaintance of Summers, Robert Autry, testified that she attempted to sell him guns used in the murder, claiming Mack shot Spinney first, and Summers subsequently shot her in the head to "put her out of her misery." Autry's testimony was supported by a recorded conversation where Summers detailed the incident. Additionally, after her arrest, Summers expressed confidence that Mack would take the blame for the murder, a claim corroborated by Mack's cellmate, who reported Mack admitting to firing both shots but intending to blame Summers.
Mack committed suicide before her trial, leaving a note claiming her innocence in the death of Joy Spinney and blaming Sheila Summers Domnisse for the murder. In the note, Mack expressed a desire to escape harassment and urged for justice against Sheila. During Summers' trial, she testified about her encounter with Mack, describing Mack as drunk and armed with a revolver. Summers recounted being threatened by Mack, who forced her to move Spinney’s body and drive to a remote location where Mack shot Spinney.
Summers argues that the district court's refusal to exclude death-qualified jurors violated her constitutional right to a fair trial, claiming such juries are biased towards conviction. She references several journal articles to support her claim. However, the court highlighted that under McKenna v. State, the burden is on the defendant to prove jury nonneutrality, which Summers failed to do merely by citing articles. Therefore, the court found no violation of her right to a fair trial regarding the jury's death-qualification.
Additionally, Summers contended that the district court erred by conducting a collective voir dire of potential jurors instead of individual questioning.
The district court holds discretion over the scope and method of voir dire, as established in Cunningham v. State and Wilkins v. State. Without evidence of an abuse of discretion or prejudice to the defendant, the court's decision to conduct collective voir dire is upheld. Summers failed to demonstrate such issues, leading to the rejection of her request for individual voir dire of prospective jurors.
Additionally, Summers' motion to suppress recordings from a "body bugging" incident was denied. Citing State v. Bonds, the court affirmed that warrantless electronic recordings did not constitute interception of wire or oral communications, allowing such recordings if they meet the authorization requirements in NRS 200.650. Since Autry authorized the interception, the court found no error in denying the suppression motion.
Lastly, the court admitted Mack's suicide note as evidence against Summers during the State's rebuttal, intended to impeach Mack's cellmate's testimony about Mack's confessions. However, this was deemed erroneous, as the impeachment rule requires inconsistent statements to be made by the witness being impeached. Since the note was authored by Mack, not the cellmate, it did not meet the criteria for admissibility as a prior inconsistent statement, as outlined in Dorsey v. State and Kaplan v. State.
Mack, identified as the declarant, did not testify at Summers' trial and was not cross-examined regarding her suicide note. This lack of testimony and cross-examination failed to meet the second requirement for admitting an impeaching prior inconsistent statement, violating Summers' Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against her. Although a violation of this right does not always lead to conviction reversal, it is mandatory when the evidence of guilt is circumstantial and not overwhelming. The State acknowledged that Mack fired the first shot, and no physical evidence confirmed that Summers fired the second shot. The only evidence suggesting Summers' involvement came from the testimony of a drug user and a recording made when Summers was allegedly intoxicated. The admission of Mack's suicide note was found to have a prejudicial effect that could not be deemed insignificant, leading to the conclusion that the error was not harmless. Consequently, the improper admission of the note necessitated the reversal of Summers' conviction and a remand for a new trial. Additionally, if the State objects to testimony from Mack's cellmate, the trial judge must assess the trustworthiness of Mack's alleged statements to her. Summers also contested the death-qualification of jurors but did not argue that it was conducted improperly according to established guidelines.
NRS 179.440 defines "Oral communication" as a verbal message conveyed with an expectation of privacy. NRS 200.650 prohibits individuals from surreptitiously listening to or recording private conversations without the consent of at least one participant. The district court excluded a specific sentence from Mack's suicide note, which indicated a request for the death penalty for another person. NRS 51.035 outlines the definition of hearsay, stating that a statement offered to prove the truth of its content is hearsay unless the declarant testifies and is cross-examined, particularly if the statement contradicts their testimony. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused the right to confront witnesses against them. The trial judge may have aimed to balance the testimony of Mack's cellmate, Ethyl Louise Callier, by considering the suicide note's admission. Upon retrial, should the State challenge Callier's testimony regarding Mack's admission, the judge must assess whether sufficient corroborative evidence exists to establish the trustworthiness of Mack's statement to Callier, as outlined in NRS 51.345.
