DA asks court to reconsider Binion reversals

Thursday, Sept. 4, 2003 | 11:17 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Clark County District Attorney David Roger asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to reconsider its decision to grant a new trial to Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish in the 1998 murder of Ted Binion.

A divided Supreme Court on July 14 overturned the first-degree murder, robbery, grand larceny and burglary convictions against Murphy, who was Binion's girlfriend, and Tabish, who was having an affair with Murphy.

Both received life terms with the possibility of parole after 20 years for murder and consecutive sentences of two to 10 years for burglary of Binion's underground vault.

"Since the trial lasted six weeks and included testimony from 115 witnesses, it is not surprising that the court might overlook crucial facts buried in a record on appeal that consisted of over 51 volumes and 16,194 pages," Roger said.

Janette Bloom, clerk of the Supreme Court, said it was now up to the justices to decide if they want a response from defense lawyers or whether they will consider the petition without asking for additional arguments.

In the July decision, four of the seven justices on the court reversed the convictions, stating that evidence was improperly presented at the Las Vegas trial of a separate crime, in which Tabish was accused of beating a man over an attempt to obtain a gravel pit at Jean.

Tabish was convicted of extortion with a deadly weapon in that case and was sentenced to a term of 18 to 120 months to run consecutive with the murder sentences.

The court majority said that evidence of that separate incident had a "substantial and injurious effect" that spilled over to the charges of murder involving Binion, whose family runs Binion's Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas.

Roger said he believes there was "strong" evidence to tie the incident involving Leo Casey, the man who was beaten at the gravel pit, with a plot to steal Binion's silver and finance the development of the gravel pit.

The Supreme Court, in its July decision, also said District Judge Joseph Bonaventure should not have allowed into evidence a statement made by Binion to his attorney the day before he died.

Binion's lawyer James Brown was allowed to testify that Binion instructed him "Take Sandy (Murphy) out of the will if she doesn't kill me tonight. If I'm dead you'll know what happened."

The court said the "prejudicial impact was great: The statement strongly implied Murphy killed Binion."

Roger argued that allowing the statement to be admitted was a harmless error and not one that should require a new trial.

Roger said closer inspection shows that the statement "revealed little or no prejudice to the parties. It was not used as evidence of Ted Binion speaking from his grave."

Defense lawyers in the case argued that Brown actually believed Binion died of a heart attack, Roger noted.

"The defense argued that an attorney (Brown) who had knowledge that the victim believed he was going to be killed acted completely inapposite to that belief," Roger said.

Justices Bill Maupin and Myron Leavitt dissented from the majority decision in July, stating they believed the convictions should be upheld. Justice Miriam Shearing agreed with the majority in that the murder convictions should be overturned based only on Brown's statement at the trial. She said that statement tainted the convictions.