The Nevada Supreme Court building Monday, March 4, 2019.
Photo: David Calvert / The Nevada Independent
By Scott Sonner Associated Press
Sunday, October 9, 2022
RENO — The Nevada Supreme Court has overturned a murder conviction in a high-profile, road-rage case after it says the district judge in Reno wrongly concluded the fatal gunshot through a truck window constituted a burglary.
Prosecutors had argued under alternate theories of premeditation or burglary that the bullet's unlawful entry into the vehicle was effectively a burglary that satisfied one of the legal hurdles necessary to find Wayne Cameron guilty of first-degree murder in the February 2020 killing of Jarrod Faust.
In a 2-1 ruling, the state Supreme Court disagreed, reversed the conviction and sent the case back to Washoe District Court, where a jury found Cameron guilty in July 2021 after a nine-day trial.
“The prosecutor's ‘bullet-entry’ argument at trial was improper and the district court erred by allowing the prosecutor to advance that argument,” the court ruled Sept. 28.
The 2020 incident began when Cameron said he tailed Faust for several minutes through Reno residential streets after Faust nearly hit a motorcyclist, finally confronting him in a cul-de-sac. Police said Cameron shot Faust as he sat, unarmed, in his truck. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Justice Abbi Silver wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Justice Elissa Cadish, that Cameron or the gun itself had to cross into the truck to establish burglary.
Justice Kristina Pickering wrote in a dissent that the jury reasonably rendered a verdict regardless of whether Nevada law “forecloses an entry-by-projectile theory of burglary” because there was sufficient evidence to suggest premeditation and deliberation.
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