Man granted parole in 1998 teenage slaying

By Cy Ryan

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014 | 4:33 p.m.

CARSON CITY — The state Pardons Board voted Tuesday to grant immediate parole to Marcus Dixon, who as a juvenile fatally shot one person and wounded another in Las Vegas in 1998.

Dixon, now 31, will be freed from the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City once he submits an approved release plan showing how he will live outside of prison. He will be under lifetime supervision by the state.

Board members, including Chairman Gov. Brian Sandoval, made it clear that they did not excuse Dixon for the killing on May 6, 1998, but approved his application for mandatory parole. In doing so, the board overturned the recommendations of the state Department of Corrections and the Clark County District Attorney’s Office, which both opposed Dixon’s release.

Board members questioned the finding of the correction department that Dixon had been a member of a gang and that he had not achieved the educational standards required of inmates to be released. Dixon told the board he had never been a member of a gang and had taken community college classes in Las Vegas and Carson City. Prison officials said there was no record of him taking educational classes.

Marcus Dixon and his cousin, Calvin Dixon, 14 and 16 at the time, were hanging out in front of a supermarket when Calvin gave Marcus his gun. Two teens drove up, insulting the boys and a small-time east Las Vegas gang called "White Street" they may have been associated with. Marcus Dixon shot 16-year-old Daryl Crittenden four times in the back, killing him. He also wounded Steven Austin.

At the time, Nevada law required juveniles charged with murder be tried as adults. That law changed after a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The cousins both denied shooting Crittenden and rejected plea bargains from the prosecutor of 10 to 25 years. Instead, both received 40 year sentences with the possibility of parole.

There were few options after Marcus Dixon appealed his case and lost. He was ineligible for parole until 2038, when he would have been 54 years old. He asked the state's Board of Pardons for a lessening of his sentence. The first time, it was was denied. In 2006, the Board of Pardons reduced the minimum term to 15 years.

The victim's grandmother, Winnie Crittenden, told the New York Times in 2001 that she and the victim's father, Daryl Crittenden Sr., had forgiven Marcus and Calvin Dixon.