Retrial spares killer from death penalty

A Clark County jury spared the life of a 38-year-old death row inmate convicted in 1988 of killing a Las Vegas convenience store clerk.

After a 2003 Supreme Court decision granting Edward Bennett a new penalty hearing, the jury sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Bennett was convicted and sentenced to death nearly 20 years ago for the slaying of 21-year-old Michelle Moore, who was at the register of a Stop N'Go on Sahara Avenue and Maryland Parkway. Bennett and his co-defendant, Joe Beeson, tried unsuccessfully to rob the store.

On Feb. 9, 1988 as Moore went to ring up a piece of candy Beeson brought to the counter, Bennett, then 18, fired a .45-caliber handgun at point-blank range, killing her instantly.

Moore's family, who attended the six-day penalty hearing in District Judge Valerie Adair's courtroom, was distraught over the verdict.

"We thought we were done," said Moore's husband, Frank. "We healed the best we could and moved on, and this has just opened up old wounds and made new ones."

Her mother, Colleen Bard, said she was surprised to open a newspaper about five years ago and learn that Bennett would receive a new trial.

"Because he's older now, they (the jury) took pity on him. But my daughter didn't get a chance to grow older."

"They had to go through this again after all this time, and now his appellate process starts all over again," prosecutor Chris Owens said.

He said the Nevada Supreme Court has sent 15 death penalty cases back to district court for new penalty hearings during the past four years.

"People are dying of old age on death row faster than they're getting executed," Owens said.

The jury cited Bennett's genuine remorse over the crime as a mitigating factor in its decision.

The high court twice had upheld Bennett's conviction and death sentence. But in 1998, he filed a new petition to appeal.

A lower court found that Bennett was entitled to file another petition because of a decision denying him an investigator to help in a previous appellate proceeding. The lower court found that the prosecution withheld evidence that might have helped Bennett's case and found that a new penalty hearing was warranted.

The Supreme Court agreed and found that one piece of information that was withheld improperly was a statement from a jailhouse informant suggesting Beeson was the leader and instigator of the robbery, not Bennett.

Beeson, who received a life sentence, was killed in prison.

Also undisclosed to the defense was Beeson's earlier criminal history. Finally, the prosecution failed to disclose that one of its witnesses was a paid police informant.

Given those factors, the court majority agreed Bennett should get a new penalty hearing.