Medical examiners discuss cause of death

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

The trial of millionaire casino figure Ted Binion's alleged killers is now focused on the key question: How did he die?

At the end of Monday's testimony, the prosecutors' chief medical witness, Dr. Michael Baden, took the stand. Baden is co-director of the forensics unit for the New York State Police Department and has performed more than 20,000 autopsies in his 38 years in the field. He is also the host of HBO's long-running show, "Autopsy."

Baden said that after reviewing Binion's autopsy, photographs of his body, a police affidavit, toxicology reports and surveying the scene of Binion's death, he concluded that the cause of Binion's death was "homicidal suffocation."

Baden is expected to be the only witness on the stand today. He was able to testify only briefly on Monday because of the lengthy questioning of Clark County Chief Medical Examiner Lary Simms, who had reached a different conclusion about the cause of Binion's death.

In 2000 Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish were convicted of murder in connection with Binion's September 1998 death and were sentenced to life in prison, but the Nevada Supreme Court later overturned the convictions. Defense attorneys contend that Binion died of a drug overdose, and Simms' conclusion helped support that contention.

It was Baden who first determined Binion's death was the result of suffocation in the summer of 1999, and his testimony at the first trial was considered crucial to the earlier convictions of Murphy and Tabish.

During opening arguments, lawyers for both Murphy and Tabish said they would call experts of their own to combat Baden's theory.

Simms, who performed the autopsy on Binion, testified that the cause of Binion's death was heroin and Xanax intoxication.

Simms said "lethal doses" of both heroin and Xanax were found in Binion's blood, as was a "therapeutic" level of Valium. He said the presence of all three drugs collectively increased their volatility and led to Binion's death.

He said it wasn't until some six months later that he was able to conclude that Binion was a homicide victim.

Simms said that while the cause of death was based on his autopsy, a toxicology report and his scientific and medical expertise, it took "outside sources" to determine the manner of death. He said after reviewing police reports, interviews conducted by an investigator hired by the Binion estate and conversations he had with authorities and prosecutors, he determined the death was a homicide.

Tabish's attorney, J. Tony Serra, spent most of the afternoon questioning not only Simms' conclusion, but also whether certain marks on the body occurred before or after Binion's death.

Serra argued that Simms' "outside sources" presented him with a "pretty one-sided picture from law enforcement," which didn't give him all of the events that preceded Binion's demise. He said Simms never talked to Tabish, was not able to determine whether witness statements he was reading were credible, nor was he told of the 12 balloons of heroin Binion bought the night before his death.

"I always want all the salient facts," Simms replied, "but I don't have control of all that."

While Simms didn't change his conclusion of Binion's manner of death, he did agree with Serra that knowing about the heroin deal and knowing the credibility of witnesses whose statements he read would have had "a big effect" on determining the manner of death.

Much of Simms' several hours on the witness stand focused on both what the red marks on Binion's chest, wrists, knee and mouth were and when they were left on the body. Simms stayed consistent with his testimony at the first trial as he testified the markings on Binion's chest, knee and around his lips occurred after his death, but he changed his testimony concerning the wrist marks, saying he believed those occurred before Binion's death.

Serra pressed Simms asking him if anyone has "put pressure on you to change your opinion" on the wrist markings.

Serra read aloud Simms' testimony from the first trial regarding Binion's wrist marks saying under oath the doctor said the marks were "more likely than not postmortem to a reasonable degree of medical certainty."