Domingues v. State

OPINION

By the Court, Young, J.:

This case raises the single issue of whether NRS 176.025 is superseded by an international treaty ratified by the United States, which prohibits the execution of individuals who committed capital offenses while under the age of eighteen. NRS 176.025 allows imposition of the death penalty on a defendant who was sixteen years old or older at the time that the capital offense was committed.

FACTS

On October 22, 1993, sixteen-year-old Michael Domingues murdered a woman and her four-year-old son in the victims’ home. In August 1994, a jury found Domingues guilty of one count of burglary, one count of robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, one count of first degree murder, and one count of first degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon. At seventeen years of age, Domingues was sentenced to death for each of the two murder convictions. On May 30, 1996, this court upheld Domingues’ convictions and sentence. Domingues v. State, 112 Nev. 683, 917 P.2d 1364 (1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 968, 117 S. Ct. 396 (1996).¹

On November 7, 1996, Domingues filed a motion for correction of illegal sentence, arguing that “execution of a juvenile offender violates an international treaty ratified by the United States and violates customary international law.” Article 6, paragraph 5 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides that: “Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.” ICCPR, Dec. 19, 1966, art. 6, S. Treaty Doc. No. 95-2, 999 U.N.T.S. 171, 175.

In 1992, the United States Senate ratified the ICCPR, with the following pertinent reservation and declaration:

That the United States reserves the right, subject to its Constitutional constraints, to impose capital punishment on any person (other than a pregnant woman) duly convicted under existing or future laws permitting the imposition of capital punishment, including such punishment for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age.

That the United States declares that the provisions of Articles 1 through 27 of the [ICCPR] are not self-executing.

138 Cong. Rec. S4781-01, S4783-84 (daily ed. April 2, 1992) (emphasis added).

At a hearing on Domingues’ motion to correct the illegal sentence, the district court concluded that the sentence was not facially illegal and, thus, it lacked jurisdiction to correct the sentence; on March 7, 1997, the district court issued an order denying Domingues’ motion. Domingues appeals from this order.

DISCUSSION

Domingues contends that pursuant to the ICCPR, imposition of the death sentence on one who committed a capital offense while under the age of eighteen is illegal. ICCPR, 999 U.N.T.S. at 175. Although the United States Senate ratified the ICCPR with a reservation allowing juvenile offenders to be sentenced to death, Domingues asserts that this reservation was invalid and thus this capital sentencing prohibition set forth in the treaty is the supreme law of the land. See 138 Cong. Rec. S4781-01, S4783-84 (daily ed. April 2, 1992). Domingues contends that his death sentence, imposed for crimes he committed when he was sixteen years old, is thereby facially illegal. See Edwards v. State, 112 Nev. 704, 708, 918 P.2d 321, 324 (1996) (recognizing the inherent power of the district court to correct a facially illegal sentence); Anderson v. State, 90 Nev. 385, 528 P.2d 1023 (1974). We disagree.

We conclude that the Senate’s express reservation of the United States’ right to impose a penalty of death on juvenile offenders negates Domingues’ claim that he was illegally sentenced. Many of our sister jurisdictions have laws authorizing the death penalty for criminal offenders under the age of eighteen, and such laws have withstood Constitutional scrutiny. See Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989); Ved P. Nanda, The United States Reseiyation to the Ban on the Death Penalty for Juvenile Offenders: An Appraisal Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 42 DePaul L. Rev. 1311, 1312-13 (1995).

NRS 176.025 provides that the death penalty shall not be imposed upon individuals who were under sixteen years of age at the time that the offense was committed. Because Domingues was sixteen at the time he committed a capital offense, we conclude that the death penalty was legally imposed upon him. Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the district court denying Domingues’ motion to correct the sentence.

Shearing, J., and Blake, D. J., concur.²

1 According to the State, Domingues’ petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court raised the issues of whether this court’s statutory review of his sentence violated due process and whether this court’s review of his sentence violated the Eighth Amendment.