High court to hear oral arguments in 1982 murder

The Nevada Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in the case of a Trinidad native convicted in 2007 of the 1982 murder of a Carson City teen.

David Winfield Mitchell is appealing his murder conviction of Sheila Jo Harris, 18.

Mitchell alleges that the court allowed the jury to hear "bad character" and "bad act" evidence and hearsay testimony, that jury questions were mishandled and certain instructions, pertaining to another suspect's violent tendencies, were not given to the jury.

On Jan. 6, 1982, Harris, 18, was found slain in the bedroom of her Lompa Street apartment. She had been sexually assaulted, beaten and strangled.

Harris' former boyfriend and Mitchell, a handyman at the apartment complex, were both suspects in the 1982 murder, but investigators were unable to find physical evidence linking them to the crime.

Mitchell, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, was arrested Aug. 18, 2007, by international police and extradited to the U.S. after DNA tests of evidence recovered at the time of the murder matched samples obtained from Mitchell by warrant in the 1980s.

A jury deliberated for five hours before finding Mitchell guilty. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison.