Last Nevada Supreme Court Decision of 2008
The Court’s final published decision of 2009, Nika v. State, affirmed the dismissal of a petition for post conviction relief based upon the jury instruction that did not separately define the terms “willfulness,” “deliberation,” and “premeditation” Nika was convicted of murder in 1994. Years later, the Court ruled in Byford v. State, 116 Nev. 215, 994 P.2d 700 (2000), that such an instruction was improper, as the three terms are distinct elements of the mens rea required for the relevant category of first-degree, and applied that rule prospectively. Here, addressing a claim that the failure to challenge the instruction in 1994 had been ineffective assistance, the Court affirmed a prior determination that the Byford ruling represented a change in the law, rather than a clarification in existing law. Accordingly, it was not ineffective assistance of counsel for Nika’s counsel to fail to challenge the instruction.
