Summary
The Supreme Court of Nevada reviews Paul Lewis Browning’s first post-conviction petition challenging his convictions and death sentence. The court rejects most claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel and procedural arguments but holds that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge an unconstitutionally vague depravity-of-mind aggravating-circumstance instruction. The court vacates Browning’s death sentence and remands for a new penalty hearing while otherwise affirming the district court’s order.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to investigate or present various evidence and by failing to object to alleged prosecutorial misconduct and other trial errors.
- Whether appellate counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to challenge the constitutionality of the depravity-of-mind aggravating-circumstance instruction.
- Whether appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise additional claims involving prosecutorial misconduct, jury instructions, evidentiary rulings, speedy trial, and an addict-informer instruction.
- Whether the State violated Brady v. Maryland by withholding evidence concerning benefits provided to a prosecution witness and other allegedly exculpatory information.
- Whether the cumulative effect of alleged errors warranted relief from Browning's murder conviction.
- Whether Browning was entitled to relief from his death sentence because the depravity-of-mind aggravator was submitted under an unconstitutionally vague instruction.
Holdings
- Appellate counsel was ineffective because the instruction defining depravity of mind failed to provide constitutionally adequate guidance to the jury, and a challenge to the instruction had a reasonable probability of success on direct appeal.
- The death sentence could not be upheld because the court was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have imposed death without the invalid depravity-of-mind aggravator.
- Browning failed to establish ineffective assistance of trial counsel because, although counsel was deficient in some respects, Browning did not show a reasonable probability of a different guilt-phase result in light of the strong evidence of guilt.
- The State should have disclosed evidence suggesting that Wolfe received or might receive benefits for his testimony, but the nondisclosure was not material because there was no reasonable probability of a different result.
- The cumulative effect of the identified errors did not create a reasonable probability that Browning would not have been convicted of first-degree murder.
Key quotations
“Absent a proper limiting instruction, "depravity of mind" fails to provide the required constitutional guidance to jurors.” (50)
“We are also not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury here would have returned a death sentence even without this aggravator.” (52)
“Browning's appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the aggravating circumstance of depravity of mind because the jury instructions failed to provide the constitutionally required guidance to jurors.” (57)
Factual background
In 1985, Hugo Elsen was stabbed to death during a robbery at his Las Vegas jewelry store. Witnesses identified Browning near the crime scene, police found him shortly afterward in possession of stolen jewelry, and investigators found his fingerprints in the store; witnesses also testified that Browning admitted robbing the store and believing he had killed someone. A jury convicted Browning of murder and related offenses and found five aggravating circumstances, including depravity of mind, before imposing a death sentence. The jury instruction defining depravity of mind did not require torture, mutilation, or other serious physical abuse beyond the killing itself.
Procedural history
Browning was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon, robbery with use of a deadly weapon, burglary, and escape, and was sentenced to death. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence on direct appeal. Browning filed a timely first post-conviction petition, later supplemented and amended; after an evidentiary hearing, the district court denied the petition on December 7, 2001. The Nevada Supreme Court held that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the depravity-of-mind aggravating circumstance, vacated the death sentence, remanded for a new penalty hearing, and otherwise affirmed.
Remand instructions
Vacate Browning's death sentence and remand for a new penalty hearing. The district court's order denying post-conviction relief is otherwise affirmed.