It's always amazing to me just how bad some people can be at committing a crime. Especially a serious crime like murder. Even when it's totally planned.
Did Donald Sherman successfully kill his former girlfriend's father? Yep. Went to Las Vegas, broke in through a window, and bludgeoned him to death in his bed. No witnesses. No prints, either. No DNA or anything else at trial.
Okay. I suspect that Mr. Sherman might have considered that a job well done.
Now, before the murder, Mr. Sherman might have done some unnecessary talking that might have raised suspicions. After all, according to the opinion, "On May 1, 1994, Dianne’s friend, Erin Murphy, informed her that Sherman was going to Las Vegas and that she feared he would harm Dr. Bauer. Murphy told Dianne that she should tell her father and the Las Vegas Police Department. Dianne says that she informed her brother, the Longview Police Department, and the FBI about the danger Sherman posed to her father."
But that's not super compelling evidence that he's guilty of a murder that took place a month later. Still, he might not want to have said anything to anyone beforehand.
Here was his first big mistake, though. "Sherman stayed at a local Las Vegas hotel from May 28 to May 31, 1994, which coincided with the murder." Yeah, that's probably a bad idea. Might want to pay cash, or sleep in your car, if you're planning to kill someone in a different town. Or get a fake identification for the hotel room. Given how many kids have one for getting into bars, they can't be hard to get, right?
But it's not just that. Here's the absurdly stupid part. With a reminder that the person who was murdered was Dr. Lester Bauer:
"On May 30 [the day of the murder], Sherman called Swinging Susie’s, an escort service, and asked for an escort to meet him at his hotel room. An escort, “Paige,” met with Sherman, who introduced himself as “Dr. Bauer.” Sherman paid for Paige’s services with Dr. Bauer’s credit card and signed the receipt as “Dr. Lester Bauer.” Paige returned to Sherman’s hotel the next morning, May 31.
Later on May 31, Sherman checked into a hotel in Santa Barbara, California. Again, he introduced himself as “Lester Bauer,” paid with Dr. Bauer’s credit card, and signed the receipt as “Dr. Lester Bauer.”
On June 2, Santa Barbara law enforcement arrested Sherman while he slept in Dr. Bauer’s stolen car. Inside Sherman’s wallet the officers found Dr. Bauer’s credit cards and restaurant and jewelry-store receipts signed by “Lester Bauer.”"
Dude, seriously? After you bludgeon a guy to death with a hammer, you might not want to (1) tell an escort that you're that guy, (2) pay with the dead guy's credit card, (3) check into a hotel as that guy, using (again) his credit card, (4) buy jewelry and go to restaurants with that same card, and (5) sleep in the dead guy's stolen car.
Needless to say, the guy gets convicted and sentenced to death in Nevada. And, on habeas, the Ninth Circuit affirms. Because, among other reasons, any potentially problematic evidentiary rulings at trial would have been harmless error given the overwhelming evidence of Mr. Sherman's guilt.
Since it's Nevada, there's a slightly greater chance than in California that Mr. Sherman would actually be executed since his federal habeas appeals are about over. That said, Nevada hasn't actually executed anyone since 2006, and of the dozen people executed there since the death penalty came back in 1976, all but one have been "volunteers". So I'm not sure that today's opinion really puts Mr. Sherman on the edge of actually having his sentence carried out.
Still. Life in prison on death row in Nevada is hardly where one wants to end up in life. Or, as here, spend 27 years, and counting, with another 30 or so to go before almost certainly dying in the place.
