Posts by Kim Smith

A 22-year-old Las Vegas man in prison for a murder committed when he was a teen learned Wednesday that he will not have to wait until he is middle-aged to have a chance to get out from behind bars.

Dixon’s attorney, Kristina Wildeveld, argues that the teenager was too young to appreciate what chain of events would unfold after the trigger was pulled. He was unable to conceive of spending even 10 years in jail at the time he was charged, and wrongly thought he could beat the charges. Had he been older, Wildeveld…

“Death is on the table,” Kristina Wildeveld Coneh said while standing outside the court after the 10-minute hearing. “If she were ruled a juvenile, we wouldn’t be talking death here … Essentially, we are baby sitters trying to teach her what’s going on.”

Boxers or briefs? Deputy Special Public Defender Kristina Wildeveld remembers the feeling of astonishment she felt when that was the question two jurors asked a prosecutor moments after handing down a guilty verdict in a murder case.

“He recognizes that he did wrong, and going to prison is a part of a process,” Wildeveld said. “It’s a way of forgiving himself for what he did.”

Special Deputy Public Defender Kristina Wildeveld argued that her client, Jones, also had nothing to do with the murder. He merely cleaned up a brown spot on a rug at DeChant’s request. He didn’t know it was what remained of a bloody crime scene already cleaned up by DeChant, Wildeveld said.