The attempted murder sentence in Nevada is 2 to 20 years in state prison. That is a long way below what a murder conviction carries, and the gap is wider than the name of the charge suggests.
Whether this is your charge or you are trying to understand what someone close to you is facing, the number is only the starting point. What gets added to it, and what the State still has to prove, decides where inside that range a case actually lands.
Why Is Attempted Murder Punished Less Than Murder?
Because Nevada sentences an attempt one category below the completed crime.
Murder is a category A felony, the most serious classification Nevada has. Under NRS 193.153, an attempt to commit a category A felony is punished as a category B felony, which carries a minimum term of not less than 2 years and a maximum of not more than 20.
What Does a Deadly Weapon Add to an Attempted Murder Sentence?
Between 1 and 20 years.
Under NRS 193.165, anyone who uses a firearm or other deadly weapon in the commission of a crime is punished, in addition to the term prescribed for the crime itself, by imprisonment for a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 20.
That is added on top of the 2 to 20, not folded into it. The statute is explicit that it creates no separate offense, only an additional penalty that attaches when the required fact is found.
The size of the enhancement is not fixed. In setting its length a judge must consider a list of statutory factors and state on the record that it did so, which gives the defense a defined set of points to argue against.
The definition of deadly weapon is wider than the word suggests. It covers any instrument that will or is likely to cause substantial bodily harm or death when used as designed, and also anything that, in the circumstances it was used, attempted to be used or threatened, was readily capable of causing that harm.
A weapon allegation can also bring separate gun and weapons charges alongside the attempt, which is a different exposure again from the enhancement.
NRS 193.165 also restricts probation. For a defined list of offenses committed with a weapon, the court is barred from granting probation or suspending the sentence at all. Whether a particular charge sits on that list is one of the first things worth establishing, because it decides whether a non-custodial outcome is even available to argue for.
What Does the Prosecution Have to Prove for Attempted Murder?
Two things, and the second is where these cases are fought.
There has to be an act done with the intent to commit the crime, tending toward it but failing to accomplish it. That is the statutory definition of an attempt, and it means the State must show both a step taken and the intent behind it.
For attempted murder the intent element is specific intent to kill, which sits above recklessness, intent to injure, or indifference to whether someone died. The prosecution has to prove the person meant to cause death, and where there is no admission it has to build that inference from conduct and circumstances alone.
Our murder defense page sets out the wider homicide framework this charge sits inside.
Can You Be Convicted of Attempted Murder if the Victim Died?
Yes, and the statute says so directly.
NRS 193.153 provides that a person may be convicted of an attempt even where it appears at trial that the crime was actually completed, unless the court in its discretion discharges the jury and directs the defendant to be tried for the crime itself.
It closes the reverse gap too. Nothing in the statute protects someone who, in an unsuccessful attempt at one crime, commits a different one. Failing at the intended offense does not erase what was actually done along the way.
What Happens if the State Cannot Prove Intent to Kill?
The conduct does not stop being a crime, but the charge that fits it changes, and so does the exposure.
Firing at someone, swinging a weapon or causing an injury each support charges that exist independently of any intent to kill. The two closest to attempted murder are assault with a deadly weapon and battery with a deadly weapon, both under Nevada’s assault statutes. Both are category B felonies. Assault with a deadly weapon carries 1 to 6 years under NRS 200.471. Battery with a deadly weapon carries 2 to 10 years where no substantial bodily harm results, and 2 to 15 years where it does or where the battery is committed by strangulation.
Set against 2 to 20 years plus a potential enhancement, those are materially different positions to be in.
Nevada also allows a jury to convict on an offense necessarily included in the one charged, which is a separate route to the same place as a negotiated reduction.
Which Court Hears an Attempted Murder Case in Nevada?
It starts in justice court and finishes in district court.
As a category B felony, attempted murder begins in the justice court for the township where the alleged offense occurred, but only as far as the preliminary hearing. If the court finds probable cause, the case is bound over to the district court, which for Washoe County is the Second Judicial District Court in Reno. That is the same court that handles the rest of Nevada’s violent crime docket.
That hearing is the earliest point at which the State has to put its evidence in front of a judge.
What to Do if You Are Charged With Attempted Murder
Say nothing about the incident to anyone other than a lawyer. An explanation offered to police to make things look better is one of the few ways the State gets intent evidence straight from the defendant.
Preserve anything that shows context. Messages, call logs, location data and witness names go stale or disappear, and the version of events that survives tends to be the one somebody wrote down.
Do not assume the charge is what it will stay. Attempted murder is sometimes filed at the top of what the facts might support, and charges filed at the top have somewhere to come down to.
Talk to a Reno Criminal Defense Attorney About an Attempted Murder Charge
The charge that appears on the paperwork is a starting position, not a verdict. What it becomes depends on evidence that is easiest to challenge before it hardens into a record.
If you or someone in your family is facing an attempted murder charge in Reno, Sparks, or anywhere in Northern Nevada, Richard P. Davies, Esq. brings over 20 years of experience to Reno criminal defense cases, including the gravest charges the State brings. Call (775) 360-6894 for a free consultation.