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Byford v. State2/28/2000
In 1992, the State charged appellant Robert Royce Byford and two co-defendants, Christopher Garth Williams and Todd Smith, with the murder of Monica Wilkins. Smith later pleaded guilty to one count of accessory to murder and agreed to testify against Byford and Williams. In 1994, Byford and Williams were found guilty by a jury and sentenced to death, but this court reversed their convictions and remanded for retrial due to violation of their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Murray v. State, 113 Nev. 11, 930 P.2d 121 (1997).
After retrial, Byford and Williams were again convicted. Byford received a death sentence, and Williams a term of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Byford appeals on a number of grounds. We conclude that none warrant relief and affirm.
FACTS
Byford's second trial began in February 1998, at which time the following evidence was adduced.
Byford, Williams, and two teenage girls were visiting Smith at his parents' residence in Las Vegas on March 8, 1991. Byford was twenty years old, Williams seventeen, and Smith nineteen. Monica Wilkins, who was eighteen, called and told Smith she would pay him for a ride home from a local casino. Smith drove his jeep to pick Wilkins up, accompanied by Williams and one of the girls. After Smith picked up Wilkins and her friend, Jennifer Green, he asked Wilkins for gas money. Wilkins had Smith stop at a Burger King so that she could get some money. Williams went inside the store to see what was taking her so long, and Wilkins told him that she had gotten another ride. Smith and Williams were upset with Wilkins, and after they drove away, Williams fired a handgun out the window of the jeep.
Smith testified that Wilkins had angered him, Williams, and Byford before because she had invited them to her apartment to party but then left with other men. Byford and Williams had talked about "get[ting] rid of her" because she was always "playing games with our heads." Smith participated in the talk but took the threats as jokes.
Later that night, Smith, Williams, and Byford were together at Smith's house when Wilkins called again for a ride home. Accompanied by Byford and Williams, Smith drove to pick her up. Smith then drove all four of them to the desert outside of town to find a party that Byford heard was taking place. Wilkins told the other three that she had taken LSD earlier and was hallucinating. Smith drove to the usual area for parties, but they found no party. They then stopped so that everyone could urinate. Wilkins walked up a ravine to do so.
Smith testified to the following. As Wilkins finished, Byford handed Williams a handgun and said he "couldn't do it." Smith asked Byford what he was doing with the gun, and Byford told Smith to "stay out of it." Williams then shot Wilkins in the back three to five times. She screamed and fell to the ground. Wilkins got up, walked to Williams, and asked him why he had shot her. He told her that he had only shot around her. Wilkins walked up out of the ravine but then felt the back of her neck, saw that she was bleeding, and again confronted Williams. Williams told her that he shot her because she was "a bitch." He then walked behind her and shot her again repeatedly. Wilkins screamed and fell to the ground again. Byford then took the gun from Williams, said that he would "make sure the bitch is dead," and fired two shots into her head. Byford then got a can of gasoline from the jeep and poured it on Wilkins. Byford tried to hand a lighter to Smith and get him to light the gasoline, but Smith refused. Byford called him a "wussie" and lit the body. As it burned, the three drove off. As they returned to Las
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