| On September 18th 1998 Ted Binion died at his house in Las Vegas. Binion was a long time heroin user. He had lost his gaming license to operate the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. After his death the estate hired Tom Dillard a private Investigator to prove that Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish killed him. The estate hired Michael Baden MD and it was not until after Dr. Baden changed the manner of death to suffocation, that the Medical Examiner Dr. Simms, changed the death certificate to homocide. There are many troubling things about this case including jury misconduct, Prosecutor misconduct, Massiah violations, as well as questionable investigative practices by Tom Dillard. A juror had a proposition for a book during the trial, but failed to report this to the Judge. During deliberations some jurors used the term depraved indifference to convince one or two jurors to change their vote to guility. The problem is that this term is not part of Nevada law and is not part of the jury instructions. There was a hearing about jury misconduct, and even though several jurors related this term was used, none admitted to the meaning, with the exception of one juror, who had her mind changed because of this term. In my opinion the jurors did not want to jeopardize the verdict being overturned for fear of not getting their book deal. Nine of those jurors are involved now in writing a book. There are many issues that prevented a fair trial, including the planting of David Gomez a jailhouse snitch in the cell with Rick to steal defense documents for the Prosecution. The defense attempted to place affadavits into the hearings to discuss this incident but Judge Bonaventure refused to let them do this. There are many examples of threats and intimidation by the Prosecution and Tom Dillard. There was also witnesses who would have testified that James Brown, the estate attorney took two truckloads of stuff from the house the day after Binion died. These defendants were accussed of robbery, and convicted of this even though Brown was the one who took the stuff from the house. Why wasn't this information brought out during the trial? Why did the Prosecution use Kurt Gratzier, who had made threats to kill Rick Tabish or put him away for life, and there were witnesses who would have testified to this, but not put on the stand. Gratzier's testimony was used to prove premeditation, knowing this witness has mental problems. We need new information regarding the actions of the Prosecution and Tom Dillard. If anyone knows anything about this case please notify me at ednabirch@hotmail.com |
