## Facts

- After a prior altercation at a Carson City motel, Jessica Evans allegedly assembled a group to return to the motel in retaliation.
- The group allegedly went to the motel carrying metal and wooden clubs.
- They knocked on a motel room door and, when it opened, rushed inside and beat Samuel Resendiz and Carlos Lainez.
- Resendiz died from his injuries; Lainez survived.
- The State charged the defendants with open murder with the use of a deadly weapon (on theories of second-degree murder and first-degree felony murder), battery with the use of a deadly weapon, burglary, and conspiracy to commit battery.
- The felony-murder theory alleged the killing occurred during a burglary based on entry into the motel room with intent to commit battery.

## Issues

1. Whether Nevada’s felony-murder statute permits a first-degree felony-murder charge when the predicate felony is burglary committed with intent to commit battery that results in death.
2. Whether a merger doctrine bars felony murder when the intended felony inside the burglary is an assaultive offense integral to the homicide.

## Decision

- The Nevada Supreme Court (en banc) reversed the district court’s pretrial dismissal of the felony-murder portion of the open-murder charge.
- The court held felony murder may be predicated on burglary even when the burglar’s intended crime at entry is battery and the battery results in death.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings with the felony-murder theory reinstated.

## Legal Principles

- Under NRS 200.030(1)(b), a killing committed during the perpetration or attempted perpetration of an enumerated felony, including burglary, constitutes first-degree murder.
- When the predicate felony is burglary, Nevada courts will not impose a judicial “merger” limitation that excludes burglaries based on intent to commit assaultive offenses.
- Burglary is complete upon entry with the requisite criminal intent and is analytically distinct from a resulting homicide, allowing it to serve as an independent predicate felony for felony murder.
- Statutory enumeration of burglary as a predicate felony applies without qualification as to the intended offense inside the structure.

## Conclusion

Nevada permits first-degree felony-murder charges based on burglary even when the entry was made with intent to commit battery that culminates in a killing, because burglary is a separately completed predicate felony and Nevada’s statutory felony-murder scheme does not incorporate a merger bar in that context.


State v. Contreras, 118 Nev. 332, 46 P.3d 661 (Nev. 2002)