State Supreme Court strips Murphy of Binion estate cash, home

CARSON CITY - Reversing a lower court, the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that Sandy Murphy gets nothing from the estate of Ted Binion, the former Las Vegas casino executive she's convicted of murdering.

The court threw out a December 1998 decision by then-District Judge Myron Leavitt that Murphy was entitled to $300,000 and the home she shared with Binion. Leavitt is now a Supreme Court justice and didn't participate in the decision.

In his original will, Binion gave the home and money to Murphy, a former stripper who became his live-in girlfriend.

But Binion's lawyer, James J. Brown, said Binion had telephoned a day before his death and directed him to change the will and give Murphy nothing.

Binion, 55, was found dead in his home on Sept. 17, 1998. An autopsy showed he had lethal levels of heroin and the prescription drug Xanax in his system.

Murphy and Rick Tabish, a business associate of Binion's, were convicted May 24 of first-degree murder in his death.

In a footnote to the decision, the Supreme Court pointed out that a state law prohibits murderers from receiving property from the estate of the people they kill. But that law had nothing to do with Monday's decision.

Justices Cliff Young, Bill Maupin and Nancy Becker said Leavitt was wrong in the first place to rule that the law didn't allow a will to be modified through a telephone conversation.

Leavitt had ruled ''a telephone call to decedent's attorney was not sufficient'' under state law to revoke the first will.

Binion family members appealed to the Supreme Court after Leavitt made his summary judgment in favor of Murphy. Her lawyer at the time, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, had hailed the decision, saying to change a will a person at least should go to his lawyer's office and get witnesses to swear he is of sound mind.

But the Supreme Court said the ''plain meaning'' of the law allows changes to be made even through calls to lawyers.

Under the law, a will can be revoked ''by the testator, or by some person in his presence, or by his direction.''