STATE OF NEVADA
COUNTY OF CLARK

ARTHUR SPEAR, Jr., being first duly sworn, deposes and says:

1. That I was a member of the jury in the case entitled State of Nevada vs. Richard Tabish and Sandra Murphy, which was tried in the Eighth Judicial District Court before Judge Bonaventure from March 27 until May 24, 2000. During the course of the trial I was referred to as Juror #7, and I was the foreman of the jury.

2. I have been asked by representatives of the Clark County District Attorney's Office to respond to certain factual allegations made regarding the actions of members of the jury. I provided the information contained in this Affidavit to representatives of the District Attorney's Office and authorized them to prepare this Affidavit on my behalf.

3. It is my understanding that Juror #12, Mr. Elmer Glazener, prepared a typed list of the witnesses who testified at trial during the deliberations in the guilt phase portion of the trial. Copies were made for each of the jurors. The document, entitled "Witnesses," made it easier for jurors to find their notes regarding a particular witness in their notebooks. The list did not contain any information other than the names of the witnesses who had testified, in the approximate order that they testified.

4. It is my understanding that Juror #12, Mr. Glazener, also prepared a typed list of the charges against each Defendant during the deliberations in the guilt phase of the trial. This list, entitled "Charges," just made it easier in deliberations to organize our thoughts as to each charge. It did not contain any information other than a list of the charges against each Defendant.

5. It is also my understanding that Juror #12, Mr. Glazener, prepared a typed numerical list of the jury instructions provided to us by the Court during the deliberations in the guilt phase portion of the trial. Copies were made for each of the jurors. This numerical list, entitled "Instructions Binion Case," made it easier to locate particular jury instructions as we deliberated on each count. It did not contain any information other than a numerical list of the instructions provided by the Court.

6. On the weekend after we returned our verdicts in the guilt phase, I prepared a handwritten time line of the events surrounding the death of Mr. Binion which was distributed to members of the jury during the penalty phase. It was not intended as a complete record of all of the deliberations, but was more of a keepsake for the other jurors. This time line contains the phrase "depraved indifference," which is a term used by some jurors during the deliberation process, and referred to the actions of the Defendants at and before the time of Mr. Binion's death. The phrase was not obtained from any outside legal source.

7. During jury deliberations in the guilt phase, certain of the Jury Instructions provided to us by the Court were photocopied so that each member of the jury could review them in detail. This was done at the request of the jury, to make it easier for each juror to review the substantial amount of law presented to us in the instructions. I approached the bailiff, Hank, with the request, which he said he would forward to the Court. The bailiff told me that the request had been granted and I gave the bailiff the instructions we wished to have copied.

8. I am not aware of any juror ever advising other jurors of witnesses who would be called to testify on a particular day.

9. I am not aware of any juror ever advising other jurors during the trial that they had heard any facts surrounding the treatment of a hotel bellman by the Judge. I recall the bailiff asking us if we had heard a remark from the bellman, and the jurors who said they had heard the remark were ushered from the room. None of those jurors ever apprised me of what took place once they were separated from the group.

10. No member of the jury ever advised me during the trial of information about the case obtained from family members, friends or media reports.

11. No member of the jury ever advised me during the trial of any information pertaining to Dr. Michael Baden prior to his testimony.

12. I am not aware of any juror ever advising other jurors during the trial that witness Larry Stockett had been arrested after his testimony in the case.

13. I inadvertently saw a headline in my home newspaper regarding the fact that witness Kurt Gratzer had been arrested after his testimony at trial. My wife had been removing all articles about the case from my home newspaper, but apparently did not connect that article to the Binion case. I did not read the article, but only saw the headline. It did not influence my deliberations in any respect.

14. After several days of deliberation in the guilt phase, I had some concern that the Court might wonder about the status of our deliberations. I knew that although we were hard at work, it would likely be several more days before we could complete our review of the evidence. Upon leaving the county parking garage on the evening of the third day of deliberations, the bailiff indicated that the Court would be interested to know the status of jury deliberations. I decided that evening to draft a letter to the Court to apprise Judge Bonaventure of our progress. The letter was shown to all of the jurors the following morning and was adopted by the group. We all agreed that it should be forwarded to the Judge.

15. I am not aware of any occasion during the case when any juror communicated with the bailiff about any question of law in the case, other than the occasions when notes were written to the Court that resulted in our being brought back into open court with the attorneys and the Defendants present. An allegation that I discussed the concept of felony murder with the bailiff, and then announced the result of that conversation to the rest of the jury, is false.

16. I saw Juror #12, Mr. Glazener, in possesion of a handheld computer device during breaks in the trial. Juror #12 never indicated to me that he was using the device to access any outside media sources.

17. I recall Juror #10 indicating to me once during the trial that she had relatives who had previously worked for the Binion family and had received certain items from the Binion family. The issue was never discussed during deliberations. Juror #10 was the last of the jurors to communicate her opinion of guilt or innocence of the two Defendants on the various charges.


ARTHUR SPEAR, Jr.