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NRS 48.045

Evidence of character inadmissible to prove conduct; exceptions; other crimes

Applied in 184 court decisions — leading case Petrocelli v. State (1985)

Most recently applied in YOUNG (ANDREW) v. STATE (October 2025)

(Added to NRS by 1971, 781; A 1975, 1131; 2015, 2243)

How often courts cite this section

1974198019902000201020202025100
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

1. Evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his or her character is not admissible for the purpose of proving that the person acted in conformity therewith on a particular occasion, except:

(a) Evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his or her character offered by an accused, and similar evidence offered by the prosecution to rebut such evidence;

(b) Evidence of the character or a trait of character of the victim of the crime offered by an accused, subject to the procedural requirements of NRS 48.069 where applicable, and similar evidence offered by the prosecution to rebut such evidence; and

(c) Unless excluded by NRS 50.090, evidence of the character of a witness, offered to attack or support his or her credibility, within the limits provided by NRS 50.085.

2. Evidence of other crimes, wrongs or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that the person acted in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident.

3. Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the admission of evidence in a criminal prosecution for a sexual offense that a person committed another crime, wrong or act that constitutes a separate sexual offense. As used in this subsection, “sexual offense” has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 179D.097.

Official source: Nevada Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Nevada statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.