Top court upholds death penalties of two convicted killers

By Cy Ryan

Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 | 8:04 p.m.

CARSON CITY — The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for Scott R. Dozier who killed his drug partner, cut up his body, placed it in a suitcase and tossed in a Dumpster in Las Vegas.

The court said there was sufficient evidence to show premeditated murder and the theft of an estimated $12,000 from Jeremiah Miller.

In a unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Nancy Saitta, the court rejected arguments that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment and errors were made at trial.

Miller had borrowed $12,000 and with Dozier came to Las Vegas in 2002 from Arizona to buy ingredients to make methamphetamine.

Among the errors argued by Dozier and his lawyer was evidence that he had also been charged with murder in Arizona. He is appealing his second degree murder conviction in that state.

The Arizona murder conviction was used as aggravating circumstance in asking for the death penalty by the prosecution.

The court said the prosecution did not “misstate the law as the Arizona murder supported one of the aggravating circumstances.”

Saitta wrote the evidence showed that Dozier had to borrow $20 upon arriving in Las Vegas and “began spending significant sums of money on clothes, drugs and electronics after Miller’s death.

“We conclude that this evidence was sufficient for a rational juror to find beyond reasonable doubt that Dozier robbed Miller or killed him during the course of a robbery,” Saitta wrote.

The court did reverse one count in the convictions that there was sufficient evidence presented at trial to sustain the deadly weapon enhancement that was tied to the robbery and murder convictions.

Two witnesses testified that Dozier told them he had killed Miller but they admitted they had taken illicit drugs before talking with Dozier.

The court also upheld the death penalty for Michael R. Hogan, convicted of the 1984 fatal shooting in Las Vegas of his female companion Heidi Hinkley and firing five bullets into the victim’s teenage daughter Claudia Brown who survived.

This was the fourth petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by attorneys for Hogan.

“Because Hogan filed his petition over 21 years after the remittitur issued in his direct appeal, the petition was untimely,” wrote Saitta in the unanimous ruling.