Opinion
No. 62116
12-12-2013
MICHAEL T. ECHEVARRIA, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF NEVADA, Respondent.
An unpublished order shall not be regarded as precedent and shall not be cited as legal authority. SCR 123.
ORDER OF AFFIRMANCE
This is a proper person appeal from an order denying a petition for a writ of coram nobis. Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark County; Douglas Smith, Judge.
This appeal has been submitted for decision without oral argument, NRAP 34(f)(3), and we conclude that the record is sufficient for our review and briefing is unwarranted. See Luckett v. Warden, 91 Nev. 681, 682, 541 P.2d 910, 911 (1975).
In his petition filed on October 8, 2012, appellant claimed that the State withheld evidence, he received ineffective assistance of counsel and his guilty plea was invalid due to the ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court treated the petition as a post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus, concluding that the writ of coram nobis was superceded by a post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to NRS 34.724(2)(b), and denied the petition because appellant could not satisfy the custody requirement of a post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
The district court erred in treating the petition as a postconviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus because a post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus does not supercede a petition for a writ of coram nobis when the petitioner is no longer in custody on the conviction challenged. See Trujillo v. Warden, 129 Nev. ___, 310 P.3d 594 (2013) (recognizing the availability of the common law petition for a writ of coram nobis for petitioners not in custody on the conviction being challenged). Nevertheless, the district court correctly denied the petition because the claims fell outside the narrow scope of claims permissible in a petition for a writ of coram nobis as the claims involved legal error and not factual error that would have precluded entry of the judgment of conviction. Id. Because the district court reached the correct result in denying the petition, we
ORDER the judgment of the district court AFFIRMED.
_________________, C.J.
Pickering
_________________, J.
Hardesty
_________________, J.
Cherry
cc: Hon. Douglas Smith, District Judge
Michael T. Echevarria
Attorney General/Carson City
Clark County District Attorney
Eighth District Court Clerk