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COPYRIGHT 2004 Las Vegas Review-Journal
BYLINE: FRANK GEARY, REVIEW-JOURNAL
When Laron White and another man broke into a Las Vegas home in 1999, the homeowner shot and killed the accomplice.
Prosecutors charged White with second-degree murder in the death of the accomplice. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and is serving eight to 20 years on that charge.
In an interview by phone from the Lovelock Correctional Center north of Reno, the now 23-year-old White said he remains stunned by the turn of events.
"If I did something to cause this I would understand, but I never did anything to cause it," White said. "It was devastating. I don't understand it at all. How could I have been charged with murder with a deadly weapon when I didn't kill anybody?"
In recent years, judges have dismissed second-degree murder charges in several similar cases.
Prosecutors maintain they are charging these cases appropriately. Their basic rationale is that a person died as a result of the defendants committing a felony.
In White's case, he and 20-year-old Chay B. Stevens broke into a home on Tenaya Way.
White said he wasn't armed and cut his arm going out the window when he heard dogs barking. Stevens stayed and lost a wild shootout in the homeowner's den.
"It is absolutely proper to charge them with murder," District Attorney David Roger said of such defendants. "They engaged in very dangerous crimes, in which the likelihood of deadly consequences was foreseeable."
Defense attorney Jonathan MacArthur disagrees. He referenced the case of Taylor Maxie, who was several blocks away when police shot and killed his accomplice in a bank robbery.
"If the defendants themselves didn't cause the death, they...
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