Nevada's high court overturned Katrina Carvalho's first-degree murder conviction and ordered a new trial. A reversal is not an acquittal.

A reversed conviction sends the case back for a new trial. It is not an acquittal, and it is not a finding that the shooting did not happen. KOLO reported the justices found an abuse of discretion when the district court shut down an alternative-suspect closing argument and told jurors not to consider it. Until a new judgment, the vacated conviction does not stand as a final murder judgment.

KOLO reported Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, that the Supreme Court of Nevada overturned Katrina Carvalho's first-degree murder conviction for what the dispositional called an abuse of discretion during the 2024 trial. Carvalho had been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years in the 2021 shooting death of her sister's boyfriend, Vintell Johnson, 25. A life sentence that rested on that conviction no longer rests on a standing murder judgment while the remand is pending.

Trial witnesses, as KOLO summarized the record, testified that Johnson and his girlfriend, Regina, were arguing at an apartment complex on El Rancho Drive when Carvalho allegedly pulled out a gun and shot Johnson three times in the back. Those are trial allegations and testimony as recounted in the coverage. They are not findings that survive a vacated conviction as a final adjudication.

KOLO said defense counsel argued in closing that the evidence "points equally" to Carvalho's sister. The high court said the district court shut that argument down and instructed jurors not to consider it. Justices clarified that a defendant may argue an alternative-suspect theory to raise reasonable doubt, even though a defendant cannot turn the case into a referendum on whether someone else is guilty. Because Carvalho was prevented from presenting that theory, the court reversed the judgment of conviction and remanded for a new trial before a different department. A remand is a new trial order. It is not a not-guilty verdict. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.