S-24-0722 State of Nebraska (Appellee) v. Quan A. White (Appellant)
Appeal from the District Court for Douglas County, Judge Todd O. Engleman
Attorneys: Mary Mullin Dvorak (Asst. Douglas County Public Defender for Appellant) and Jacob M. Waggoner (Asst. Attorney General for Appellee)
Criminal: Life imprisonment for first-degree murder
Proceedings below: After a jury found him guilty, Appellant was sentenced to forty (40) years to life imprisonment for first-degree murder and was given an aggregate sentence of two-hundred-fifty (250) years’ to four-hundred-twenty (420) years’ imprisonment for the following convictions: robbery; four (4) counts of use of a weapon to commit a felony; first-degree assault; three (3) counts of discharging a firearm at an inhabited house, occupied building, or occupied motor vehicle; and theft by receiving stolen property valued at more than $5,000. Life imprisonment cases are direct appeals to the Nebraska Supreme Court.
Issues: Appellant assigns the following errors: 1) The district court erred by denying Appellant’s motion to sever the theft charges from the remaining charges; 2) The district court erred by denying Appellant’s motion to sever his trial from the trial of his co-defendant, Mariano Flores; 3) The district court erred by denying Appellant’s motion in limine to exclude evidence from which the State had failed to maintain chain of custody; 4) The district court erred by denying Appellant’s motion to exclude improper opinion evidence regarding the content of surveillance videos; and 5) The district court erred by declining to adopt Appellant’s proposed jury instruction that evidence of mere presence is inadequate to sustain a guilty verdict.