In the case of Robert M. Gober, III vs. The State of Nevada, the Nevada Court of Appeals upheld Gober’s conviction on three counts of attempted theft. This decision stems from events in 2020, when Detective Kenneth Mead of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department began investigating suspicious check deposits reported by Chase Bank. The investigation revealed that Gober attempted to deposit three checks totaling $250,000 into different accounts, but all were returned due to insufficient funds. The checks were drawn from a U.S. Bank account opened by Gober with an initial deposit of $100, and additional documents found during a search of Gober’s residence confirmed the account’s overdrawn status.
Gober was subsequently charged with three counts of attempted theft and three counts of attempted drawing and passing a bad check without sufficient funds. He was deemed incompetent to stand trial in 2021 but was later found competent in 2022. Throughout the pretrial proceedings, Gober consistently claimed he was not the person charged and refused to communicate with his appointed counsel, which led to significant delays. On the first day of his trial in May 2023, Gober requested to represent himself, but the court determined he was not competent for self-representation. He also unsuccessfully attempted to replace his appointed counsel with retained counsel.
During jury selection, Gober objected to the underrepresentation of Hispanic or Latino individuals on the venire, arguing that the selection process did not reflect a fair cross-section of the community. He presented testimony from the Clark County Jury Commissioner to support his claim. However, the court found no evidence of systematic exclusion of Hispanic or Latino individuals in the jury selection process and denied Gober’s objection.
Gober also raised Batson challenges against the State’s peremptory strikes of three Hispanic or Latino jurors. The court found the State provided race-neutral reasons for striking two of the jurors, but not for the third. Thus, the Batson challenge was sustained for the third juror but denied for the other two.
At trial, the State presented evidence through Detective Mead and Sarah Banks, a forensic legal auditor, detailing Gober’s financial activities and the investigation’s findings. Recordings of Gober’s phone calls from jail were played, where he expressed sovereign citizen beliefs, including the notion that individuals could access unlimited funds from the U.S. Treasury. Piazza, Gober’s fiancée, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights, leading the State to introduce her preliminary hearing testimony, which indicated she believed Gober had the funds to support the checks she deposited.
Gober did not present any witnesses and objected to certain jury instructions, which the court overruled. The jury ultimately found Gober guilty on all counts. At sentencing, the court dismissed the counts of attempted drawing and passing a bad check but sentenced Gober to 4-15 years in prison for the attempted theft charges.
On appeal, Gober argued several errors, including the fair-cross-section challenge, Batson challenges, jury instructions, denial of his request to replace counsel, sufficiency of the evidence, and cumulative errors regarding evidence admission and prosecutorial misconduct. The Court of Appeals reviewed and rejected each of these arguments, affirming the district court’s rulings. The appellate court concluded that Gober’s challenges were either procedurally unpersuasive, lacked merit, or did not affect the trial’s outcome. Therefore, the conviction and sentence were upheld.
A few interesting specific claims were described by the defendant, which ultimately failed but are worthy of exploring.
Gober’s defense argued that his sovereign citizen ideology negated any criminal intent, suggesting he genuinely believed he was entitled to the funds he attempted to withdraw. However, the court instructed the jury to disregard his sovereign citizen beliefs in terms of jurisdiction, while still allowing Gober to present his mistake-of-fact defense based on these beliefs.
“However, the record suggests that, despite these conflicts, his appointed counsel was able to negotiate an “extraordinary” plea deal that would have resolved eight of Gober’s other
pending cases, which Gober ultimately refused.”
His own worst enemy.
You can read the full case here. It is well worth reading, and gives you insight into how difficult these case can be to deal with in court.