Avetis Archanian is escorted out of Clark County District Court after the jury sentenced him to death on Dec. 9,2004. He was convicted of murder in the deaths of Juana Quiroga, 86, and her 68-year-old daughter, Elisa Del Prado, at World Merchants-Importers in 2003. Photo by Jeff Scheid.
CARSON CITY -- An attorney for a Las Vegas man sentenced to die for the bludgeoning deaths of two jewelry store owners in 2003 told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that numerous errors occurred in the original trial that now require reversal of his conviction.
Attorney Glenn Schepps, representing Avetis Archanian on the appeal of his first-degree murder conviction and death sentence, said there is no clear record as required by a Supreme Court rule on why damaging evidence, including crime scene and autopsy photos, were admitted into evidence over the objection of the defense counsel.
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The grisly photos showed the bodies of Juana Quiroga, 86, and her 68-year-old daughter, Elisa Del Prado, after they had been beaten to death at the World Merchants-Importers store, which the Del Prado family had operated in downtown Las Vegas since 1975.
Schepps said he cannot now argue on appeal that the evidence was improperly admitted because there is no record of the objection and ruling from District Judge Donald Mosley, who presided over the trial.
Schepps said also that there appeared to be a general sense from the court, prosecutors and even the defense attorney that Archanian was guilty and that the trial was just a formality to get out of the way.
Archanian had been hired as a part-time jewelry repairman several weeks before the killings. He was captured on a grainy video surveillance system in the store before and during what was believed to be the attacks on the two women.
Archanian told Las Vegas police he had showed up for work that day but could not gain entry to the business. The videotape suggested otherwise.
But Schepps challenged the admissibility of the videotape as well, saying it wasn't original and had been altered.
"The tape is simply not authentic," he told the court.
The videotape is the only potentially direct evidence linking Archanian to the killings, Schepps said.
A jury convicted Archanian of the crime in 2004 and sentenced him to death.
Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steven Owens said there was a chance to put objections to the admission of the photos on the District Court record for appeal, just not at the time the jury was seated in the courtroom.
He also argued that Mace Yampolsky, the defense attorney at trial, tried to challenge the prosecution's case.
The photos were required to show that blunt force trauma killed the two women, Owens said.
"Capital cases are bloody," he said. "They are gruesome."
Owens also disputed the contention that the videotape was altered in any significant way. Two people testified that it was Archanian in the videotape, he said.
It may be one issue Schepps did not raise on appeal that could at least win a new penalty hearing for Archanian.
Members of the court noted that Archanian was charged with felony murder involving a robbery of jewelry from the store. The robbery was also used as an aggravating factor to win a sentence of death.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that using one such factor both to convict someone of first degree murder and then to seek the death penalty was improper.
Justice James Hardesty asked Owens if the situation required a new penalty phase.
Owens said the other aggravating factor, that Archanian killed more than one person, still applied.
"I'm arguing for a harmless error standard," he said.
