IN RE: THE PETITION OF ANTWAN JONES (2025)

ORDER OF AFFIRMANCE

This is an appeal from a district court order denying appellant Antwan Jones's petition to establish factual innocence after conducting an evidentiary hearing. Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark County; Carli Lynn Kierny, Judge.

Jones was charged with offenses arising from a 2006 drive-by shooting in which Marcus Williams was killed and two other teenagers were injured. Jones pleaded guilty in 2007 to second-degree murder with gang enhancement and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon and was sentenced to an aggregate prison term of 20 years to life. This court vacated the deadly weapon enhancement but otherwise affirmed the judgment of conviction on direct appeal. Jones v. State, No. 51490 (Nev. May 6, 2009) (Order Affirming in Part, Reversing in Part and Remanding).

In 2021, Jones petitioned the district court for a factual innocence determination under NRS 34.960. The petition was accompanied by several affidavits from witnesses recanting their prior incriminating statements, affidavits of new alibi witnesses, and police reports implying that another person shot Williams. The district court determined that Jones identified newly discovered evidence that warranted an evidentiary hearing. After the four-day hearing, however, the district court determined that Jones failed to prove factual innocence and denied the petition. This appeal followed.

Jones argues that the district court erred in concluding that Jones failed to establish factual innocence by clear and convincing evidence. To establish factual innocence, the petitioner bears the burden of presenting newly discovered evidence showing that he or she did not engage in the conduct underlying the conviction by clear and convincing evidence. NRS 34.920(1); NRS 34.960(2)(a); NRS 34.970(7), (8). Clear and convincing evidence is proof that is “so strong and cogent as to satisfy the mind and conscience of a common man.” Wynn v. Associated Press, 140 Nev., Adv. Op. 56, 555 P.3d 272, 280 (2024) (quoting Gruber v. Baker, 20 Nev. 453, 477, 23 P.858, 865 (1890)); see also Matter of Discipline of Arabia, 137 Nev. 568, 575, 495 P.3d 1103, 1112 (2021) (explaining that clear and convincing evidence “need not possess such a degree of force as to be irresistible, but there must be evidence of tangible facts from which a legitimate ․ inference may be drawn” (internal quotation marks omitted)). The district court must consider the newly discovered evidence in the context of “all other evidence in the case.” NRS 34.960(2)(d). This court gives deference to the district court's factual findings if supported by substantial evidence and not clearly erroneous but reviews the court's application of the law to those facts de novo. Cf Lader v. Warden, 121 Nev. 682, 686, 120 P.3d 1164, 1166 (2005) (stating the standard of review for postconviction habeas appeals).

Jones asserts that the affidavits and testimony of multiple recanting witnesses, when considered with all other available evidence, established Jones's innocence. Included amongst these witnesses were surviving victim DeMarcus Hopkins and Jones's co-defendants, Shaundrell Gentry and Christian Williams (Christian), all of whom recanted their previous statements and testimony linking Jones to the shooting that killed Williams.¹ The witnesses maintained that they were induced or coerced by detectives to provide false information incriminating Jones during the investigation of the shooting and before the grand jury. The district court found, however, that the details and level of knowledge present in Hopkins's original grand jury testimony belied the claim that he failed to see the shooter and testified based only on a “script” provided by detectives. The district court further found that Gentry and Christian minimized their own culpability and provided contradictory accounts of the circumstances surrounding Williams's death, including offering differing identities of the alleged true shooter. Moreover, the district court found that each of the recantations lacked credibility in light of the witnesses’ prior untruthful statements and failure to come forward independently in the nearly twenty years since Jones's guilty plea.

Notably, Jones's innocence petition failed to address the statements and testimony of other incriminating witnesses who did not recant their prior statements. Most significantly, victim Joe Williams (Joe) identified Jones in a photographic lineup as the shooter responsible for Williams's death and testified before the grand jury that he saw Jones shooting out of the window of a white car. Additionally, Seanice Berry testified during grand jury proceedings that she saw Gentry and Jones together, with guns in their laps, within hours of the shooting. Jones's petition does not address Joe and Berry's grand jury testimony nor offer evidence undermining their statements.

The district court also considered the alibi evidence provided by Hopkins and Jones's brother, Billy Ray Jones, Jr. (Billy). At the evidentiary hearing, Hopkins testified that he was on the phone with Jones on the afternoon at issue, until about five minutes before the shooting occurred. By contrast, Billy testified that he and Jones were riding in Gentry's car on the afternoon of the shooting. Billy indicated that Gentry dropped the brothers off at home shortly before the shooting, where Billy and Jones discussed a domestic incident involving Billy's ex-girlfriend for about 30 minutes. The district court observed that these two alibis appeared to be incompatible, as they placed Jones in two distinct conversations at once. Furthermore, the district court noted that both alibis contradicted Jones's prior motion to withdraw a guilty plea, in which Jones suggested he was elsewhere with alleged shooting participant D'Terrion Richardson when the shooting occurred.

Moreover, the district court found that Jones's prior statements undermined his claim of factual innocence. For example, Jones apologized to the Williams family at sentencing, explaining that he was “young at the time” of the shooting. Jones later explicitly took responsibility for Williams's murder in a 2013 motion for sentence modification. There, Jones explained that he shot Williams due to his youth and anger arising from the shooting death of his brother. Finally, juvenile corrections officer Eric Nielsen testified at the evidentiary hearing that Jones confessed to participating in the shooting while in pretrial custody, which was consistent with Nielsen's contemporaneous report. We conclude that the district court properly considered these statements and found them to be probative of Jones's guilt.

In determining that Jones did not prove factual innocence by clear and convincing evidence, the district court found that the recanted testimony of witnesses, including Hopkins, Gentry, and Christian, lacked credibility compared to the witnesses’ previous statements and testimony. The district court similarly found the accounts of the new alibi witnesses were contradictory and therefore not credible. Jones presents no evidence or argument showing that the district court's credibility determinations were unsupported by substantial evidence or clearly erroneous. Furthermore, the record supports the district court's findings that the new evidence presented by Jones, considered in the context of the totality of the case evidence, failed to prove Jones's factual innocence.

Jones further contends that the district court's order contained inadequate factual findings to support the denial of the petition. Once an evidentiary hearing on a factual innocence petition has been held, the district court must provide the parties with “a written explanation of its determination that the petitioner proved or failed to prove his or her factual innocence by clear and convincing evidence.” NRS 34.970(8). The district court must “find the facts specially and state its conclusions of law separately.” NRCP 52(a)(1); see also NRS 34.960(10) (applying the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure in proceedings governing innocence petitions). The order should be sufficiently detailed so that this court may determine the basis for the district court's decision. Cf. Nika v. State, 120 Nev. 600, 605, 97 P.3d 1140, 1144 (2004).

As discussed above, the district court's written order explains why the court determined that Jones failed to meet his burden of proving factual innocence. The findings of fact span 15 pages, with sections dedicated to evaluating the statements and credibility of each evidentiary hearing witness. The district court compared the details of each witness's previous statements and grand jury testimony to the corresponding evidentiary hearing testimony, noting discrepancies and internal inconsistencies. The district court made detailed credibility determinations and assessed how the content of each witness's testimony advanced or failed to advance Jones's claim of innocence. We therefore discern no legal deficiency in the district court's factual findings. Accordingly, we

ORDER the judgment of the district court AFFIRMED.

Pickering, J.

Cadish, J.

Lee, J.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Additional witnesses disavowed their previous statements recounting purported confessions by Jones and corroborated accounts of detectives’ coercive investigation tactics. However, these witnesses did not claim to have direct knowledge of the circumstances of the shooting itself.