DataNevada  

*These factors track the process--i.e. the effort and obstacles--for obtaining data from individual states under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and appeals process. These factors do not measure the quality of the data; only the process of attempting to obtain the data.

Nevada responded immediately to our FOIA request with a link to their interactive dashboards.

Nevada’s statutes, however, are not specific for felony murder. Although we attempted to use publicly available web portals to identify individuals incarcerated under felony murder, as in most other states, Nevada does not have a statute specifically codifying felony murder, which would make it easier to identify and isolate felony murder conviction data. Instead, as in most other states, felony murder is defined within its other murder statutes and the publicly available conviction and sentence information did not distinguish felony murder from other murder convictions.

We appealed the FOIA results and asked for more specific data related to felony murder, but Nebraska just resent us the link to their interactive dashboard.

In Nevada, felony murder is defined in first degree murder (Nevada Rev. Stat. Ann. § 200.030(1)) and second degree murder statutes (Nevada Rev. Stat. Ann. § 200.030(2)).

Prosecutors can charge and convict any person of murder in the first or second degrees without having to prove that they intended to cause another person’s death. For first degree murder, prosecutors must prove that a person or their accomplice committed or attempted to commit a specified felony (considered by law to be the most serious) and that a death occurred. For second degree murder, prosecutors can make out felony murder if they prove a person committed or attempted any other “inherently dangerous” felony (other than the ones enumerated for first degree murder), and that there was “an immediate and direct causal relationship between the defendant's actions and victim's death.” Desai for Desai v. State, 133 Nev. 339, 346 (2017) (“[I]mmediate” is defined as “without the intervention of some other source or agency.”) (internal quotations omitted).

A conviction for felony murder under Nevada’s first degree murder statute carries a sentence of death, life without the possibility of parole, life with the possibility of parole after 20 years has been served, or a definite term of 50 years with the possibility of parole after 20 years. Under the second degree murder statute, people can be sentenced to life with parole eligibility after 10 years, or 25 years with parole eligibility after 10 years.d