Nevada Supreme Court Finds Samuel Howard Innocent of the Death Penalty 40 Years After He Was Sent to Death Row

The Nevada Supreme Court has found that a pris­on­er who has been on the state’s death row for more than forty years is ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent” of the death penal­ty and must be resentenced. 

In a rul­ing issued on September 16, 2021, the court reversed the death sen­tence imposed on Samuel Howard in 1983 for a 1980 rob­bery and mur­der in Las Vegas, hold­ing that the sole remain­ing aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance in his case that had made him eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty was invalid. Writing for a unan­i­mous court, Justice Douglas Herndon declared that ​“Howard demon­strat­ed that he is actu­al­ly inno­cent of the death penal­ty, estab­lish­ing a fun­da­men­tal mis­car­riage of justice.”

The jury that sen­tenced Howard to death in 1983 based its deter­mi­na­tion on two aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances: that the mur­der was com­mit­ted dur­ing the per­pe­tra­tion of a rob­bery and that Howard had a pri­or con­vic­tion of a felony involv­ing the threat or use of force. In 2014, the Nevada Supreme Court inval­i­dat­ed the felony-mur­der aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance, writ­ing that it is ​“imper­mis­si­ble under the United States and Nevada Constitutions to base an aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance in a cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion on the felony upon which a felony mur­der is pred­i­cat­ed.” However, it allowed his death sen­tence to stand because a 1979 con­vic­tion of rob­bery in New York state estab­lished the sec­ond aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance, leav­ing him still sub­ject to the death penalty. 

Subsequently, in 2018, a New York court vacat­ed Howard’s con­vic­tion for the rob­bery and dis­missed the charges against him. ​“Given that the statute clear­ly requires a con­vic­tion, we can­not sal­vage the aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance based on the oth­er evi­dence the State pre­sent­ed at the penal­ty hear­ing,” Herndon wrote. ​“Because the only aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance sup­port­ing Howard’s death sen­tence is no longer valid, he is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penalty.” 

The court returned the case to the tri­al court to resen­tence Howard for the murder.

Howard’s lawyer, Lance Hendron, expressed appre­ci­a­tion for the court’s deci­sion, call­ing it ​“well-rea­soned and thoughtful.” 

Anti-death penal­ty advo­cates sug­gest­ed that the deci­sion car­ried broad­er impli­ca­tions. ​“This is big,” said Scott Coffee, a pub­lic defend­er who serves on the board of the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty. ​“If you want to see the future of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment lit­i­ga­tion, you’d prob­a­bly do well to look at this. We’ve nev­er got this right, and I don’t think it’s pos­si­ble to get this right.”

Howard’s case is the lat­est in a string of cas­es across the coun­try in which death sen­tences have been over­turned more than four decades after a prisoner’s ini­tial con­vic­tion. On April 2, 2021, a Florida tri­al court vacat­ed the death sen­tence imposed on Sonny Boy Oats in 1981, find­ing him inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. He had been on death row 40 years. Less than two weeks lat­er, on April 14, 2021, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacat­ed Raymond Riles’ death sen­tence, hold­ing that the stan­dard instruc­tions giv­en his jury in his cap­i­tal retri­al in 1978 uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly lim­it­ed jurors’ abil­i­ty to con­sid­er mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence in his case. Riles was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death on December 11, 1975. At the time he was resen­tenced to life on June 21, 2021, he was the nation’s longest-serv­ing death-row prisoner.

Several inno­cent for­mer death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have also gained their free­dom after 40 years of wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tion. In 2019, Charles Ray Finch was exon­er­at­ed in North Carolina and Clifford Williams was exon­er­at­ed in Florida of mur­ders that sent them to death row in 1976. In March 2020, the Georgia Supreme Court over­turned the con­vic­tion of for­mer death-row pris­on­er Johnny Lee Gates. In May 2020, Gates was released after serv­ing 43 years for a mur­der he has long insist­ed he did not commit.