Rudin wants to shed jail garb

Kim Smith

Tuesday, June 6, 2000 | 11:06 a.m.

Last week Margaret Rudin wanted a defense team like her cellmate Sandy Murphy's. This week, she wants something else Murphy had.

Rudin wants the right to wear civilian clothes to all of her court appearances, just like Murphy did.

Typically, suspects are allowed to exchange their jail scrubs for street clothes only when they are in trial, facing a jury. However, Murphy and Rick Tabish won the right to wear civilian clothes to all of their pretrial hearings in the Ted Binion murder case, arguing that to do otherwise would unfairly prejudice potential jurors.

Rudin and her attorneys filed a motion Friday making the same claim to the same judge who handled the Binion trial -- District Judge Joseph Bonaventure.

Bonaventure is expected to make a decision on the issue June 16. Chief Deputy District Attorney Chris Owens was unavailable for comment Monday.

Rudin, 56, is awaiting trial in the murder of her husband, Ron Rudin, 64.

According to prosecutors, Rudin or an accomplice shot her husband in the head as he was sleeping on Dec. 18, 1994. They believe he was then decapitated, placed in a trunk and taken to the Lake Mohave area, where the trunk was set on fire.

Ron Rudin's remains were found about one month later, and Margaret Rudin, who stood to inherit more than half of her husband's $11 million estate, was indicted in April 1997.

According to a motion filed by Deputy Public Defender Jordan Savage, "If Rudin is clothed in the presumption of innocence, potential jurors should only see her in civilian clothing."

Since the case has received national press coverage and past pretrial hearings have also been reported on, then it only fair Rudin should be allowed to wear her own clothing, Savage wrote.

Savage also argues that should Rudin not be allowed to wear street clothes, then other ways to ensure she gets a fair trial would be to ban the press from the courtroom or change the location of the trial.

Last week Bonaventure denied Rudin's request to replace Savage and fellow public defender Will Ewing with court-appointed private attorneys, saying they were fully prepared to handle the complexities of her case.

In a letter to Bonaventure, Rudin wrote that her high profile case is "at the most opposite end of Lady Justice's scale from Sandy Murphy's 'dream team' defense. It appears as if justice is equal to whatever defense a client can buy."