Las Vegas Criminal Defense Blog

Yesterday, Mauricio Melendez was sentenced to life in prison following his July conviction of first-degree murder in Nevada. In August, 2008, police were called to his apartment, where they found his wife dead with a bullet in her head. Melendez claimed they were drunk and was showing her how to use his gun, but one of his co-workers told police that Melendez wanted to kill his wife.

Melendez is eligible for parole after twenty years for the conviction of first-degree murder in Nevada. However, he was also sentenced to an additional twenty years with parole after eight for using a deadly weapon. Since he was given credit for the year he's already spent in prison, he's eligible for parole in twenty-seven years.

Murder in Nevada may carry the death penalty, but only if there's an aggravating circumstance that's not outweighed by any mitigating circumstances.

Last Wednesday a Clark County jury sentenced convicted murderer Thomas Richardson to death for the 2005 killing of 91-year-old Estelle Feldman and her grandson, Steven Folker. Richardson was convicted of robbing them as well, netting $400. The killing was carried out with a claw hammer.

The most damning testimony in the trial came from Richardson’s girlfriend’s son, Robert Denhart, who allegedly helped him with the murders. In exchange for the testimony and his guilty plea to first-degree murder in Las Vegas, Denhart will probably receive a prison sentence of twenty-four to eighty years.

First-degree murder in Las Vegas is one of the few Nevada crimes that potentially carries the death penalty. The appeals process may take ten years or more.

Last week, a jury found Porfirio Duarte-Herrera and Omar Rueda-Denvers guilty of murder and attempted murder in Las Vegas for a 2007 case where they allegedly conspired to kill Luxor employee Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio. Today, the two undocumented aliens were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In the case, Duarte-Herrera allegedly left a tiny bomb in a coffee cup on top of Antonio’s car while Antonio was working at the casino’s Nathan’s Hot Dog stand. The bomb detonated when the twenty-four-year-old went to his car after his shift ended. He perished in front of his girlfriend, who used to date Rueda-Denvers.

Attempted murder in Las Vegas can potentially carry the death penalty. But if mitigating factors are found to outweigh the aggravating factors, the death penalty cannot be imposed.

Last week the Nevada Supreme Court rejected the appeal by convicted murderer Gregory Everett because he waited sixteen years to file a motion to withdraw his guilty plea of first-degree murder in Nevada. In a 3-0 decision, the Court explained, "Appellant failed to provide any explanation for the delay."

On July 12, 1980, Everett and three other men allegedly entered a Las Vegas apartment with the intent to steal. When the resident David Kinnamon walked in on them, one of the other men shot him to death.

In 1981 Everett pled guilty to first-degree murder in Nevada and was originally sentenced to death, but the Nevada State Board of Pardons reduced it to life in prison without parole. Now forty-eight years old, he’s currently in Ely State Prison.