Friday, Sept. 8, 2017 | 3:59 p.m.
CARSON CITY — A federal appeals court has ruled that a Las Vegas man is entitled to another hearing to prove his first-degree murder conviction was illegal.
The court today found that Taniko C. Smith had filed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus within a prescribed one-year deadline.
It sent the case back to the U.S. District Court to hear Smith’s appeal that the jury was improperly instructed. The court overturned a lower-court ruling that Smith had failed to submit his petition within the one-year limit.
Smith, now 44, was sentenced to life in prison without parole with an added sentence of 60 years. He and two others were arrested in July 1993 in the shooting death of Mario Wesley while they were trying to steal wheels off a car outside a restaurant, records show.
Smith was convicted of first-degree murder, two counts of robbery and attempted robbery.
After his conviction, a District Court judge in Las Vegas overturned the convictions, but the Nevada Supreme Court reinstated the charges and the penalty. This is the third petition of a writ of habeas corpus pursued by Smith.
