Baden awaits jury’s feelings about the evidence

Monday, May 22, 2000 | 10:12 a.m.

Dr. Michael Baden, the prosecution's star medical witness in the Ted Binion murder case, refused Sunday to take credit for the jury's return of guilty verdicts against Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish.

"It's always very arrogant for any expert to say that his testimony is important to the jury," Baden said in an telephone interview with the Sun. "I testified to what I thought was the best interpretation I could make of the evidence at hand."

Baden, a celebrated forensic pathologist from New York, said he anxiously was waiting to hear how the 12 jurors who convicted Murphy and Tabish of killing Binion viewed the evidence.

The jurors, nine women and three men, will be free to talk later this week after they decide whether to send the two defendants to prison for life without the possibility of parole.

"My sense of the jury is that they seemed very interested in the testimony when I was there," Baden said.

Baden, director of forensics for the New York State Police, testified at the trial last month that Binion was suffocated with the 19th century method of "burking," in which pressure is exerted on the chest and the nose and mouth are covered.

His testimony contradicted Clark County Chief Medical Examiner Larry Simms, who concluded Binion died of a forced heroin and Xanax overdose. Simms performed the autopsy on Binion's body the day after his Sept. 17, 1998, death.

Baden, who has been a consultant in some of the nation's biggest murder cases, testified that he could not conclude that there were lethal levels of the two drugs in Binion's body.

Defense lawyers paraded a string of medical experts before the jury in an attempt to discredit Baden's suffocation theory.

Among those who testified for the defense was Dr. Cyril Wecht, an equally famous pathologist from Pittsburgh.

Wecht, a close Baden friend, testified that he believed Binion committed suicide by overdosing on heroin and Xanax, a prescription sedative. But he acknowledged under cross examination that he was never given access to most of the prosecution's conspiratorial evidence.

Baden said it was unusual for him to be on opposite sides with Wecht, who consulted with him on the O.J. Simpson case.

"I think that Dr. Wecht is an outstanding forensic pathologist, and 99 percent of the time I would agree with his interpretations," Baden said.

Baden, who has conducted more than 20,000 autopsies, said he was intrigued by the Binion case because of the burking factor.

"The hardest diagnosis a medical examiner has to make is when people are suffocated," he said. "Suffocation is very hard to detect. From that point of view, it's a great challenge, and I like challenges."

Baden originally was hired by Binion's $55 million estate, which was probing the death independently of police.

Prosecutors later asked him to be a witness for them.

Chief Deputy District Attorneys David Roger and David Wall didn't learn of Baden's suffocation theory until shortly before they put him on the witness stand last August in the preliminary hearing for Murphy and Tabish.

Baden said he was summoned to Las Vegas by prosecutors to back up Simms, but eventually found that he had to disagree with him. He said he told Roger and Wall that they didn't have to put him on the witness stand knowing he would contradict Simms.

"They thought about it and decided that what I said had merit, and they decided to put it all out there." he said. "I was very impressed with their professionalism in this matter."

Baden, a former New York City chief medical examiner whose career has spanned 40 years, said he would have come to the same conclusions even if the defense had hired him to testify.

"All I can do in any case is testify to what I think is the truth of the questions I'm asked," he said.

Baden said he felt no ill feelings toward Milwaukee criminal attorney James Shellow, who was brought in by the defense to attack his credibility on cross-examination during the trial.

"As far as I can see, he seemed like a nice person, a gentleman trying to do the best for his clients," Baden said. "The opposing counsel is supposed to undermine the witness."

Many observers believed Shellow might have been too condescending toward Baden, a fatherly like witness who seemed to connect with the jurors.

"That's a fine line a lawyer always has to walk," Baden said. "I didn't find his questions too hostile."

Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. He can be reached at (702) 259-4067 or by e-mail at german@lasvegassun.com.