Margaret Rudin (born Margaret Lee Frost; May 31, 1943) is an American woman convicted of the December 1994 murder of her husband, Las Vegas real estate magnate Ronald Rudin. She was incarcerated at Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center in North Las Vegas, Nevada.
In May 2022, Rudin's conviction was vacated.
Early life
Rudin was born in Memphis, Tennessee, one of three daughters. The family moved frequently, and before graduating from high school, Rudin had lived in 15 states. Rudin had married four times before meeting Ronald Rudin at the First Church of Religious Science in Las Vegas. The couple wed on September 11, 1987.
Murder and investigation
Ronald Rudin (born November 13, 1930, Chicago) disappeared on December 18, 1994, aged 64, after walking to Margaret's antique shop which was in the same strip mall as his real estate office.
On January 21, 1995, his charred dismembered remains were discovered near Lake Mojave along with the burnt remains of an antique steamer trunk. He had been shot in the head at least four times with a .22 caliber gun. Police later searched the Rudin residence and found blood spatter in the bedroom as well as semen on the floor that had been removed from the house by authorities to test.
On July 21, 1996, a .22 caliber Ruger handgun was
found in Lake Mead and was traced back to Ron Rudin. The handgun was later confirmed to be the murder weapon. Ron Rudin had reported the gun missing in 1988, shortly after he married Margaret.
Flight, arrest, and trial
On April 18, 1997, the grand jury handed down a murder indictment against Margaret Rudin, but by this time, she had left the state. She spent the next 31 months in hiding until she was arrested in Massachusetts in November 1999 and was extradited to Nevada to face murder charges in the death of her husband.
Margaret Rudin went on trial on March 2, 2001. Her defense claimed that her husband was killed due to illegal activities he was involved in. The prosecutor argued she had killed her husband to prevent him from divorcing her and losing what she would inherit from his estate. She was found guilty on May 2, 2001, and on August 31 she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Appeal
In 2002, the Nevada Supreme Court denied Margaret Rudin's appeal, finding she was not denied effective assistance of counsel. As of 2008, no record of federal collateral review could be found.
In 2008, Rudin was given a new trial. Clark County District Judge Sally Loehrer ruled that lawyers for Margaret Rudin, then 65 years old, were not prepared to defend her at her 2001 trial, according to lawyers on both sides of the case. She also ruled that Michael Amador, Rudin's lead attorney at the time, was not effective, according to Christopher Oram, Rudin's new attorney.
On May 10, 2010, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that Rudin would not get another trial, as reported by KLTV-8 News. The lower appeals court's ruling was overturned, and the original conviction stood.
The Las Vegas Sun reported on April 26, 2011 that Margaret Rudin had filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court seeking a new trial and reversal of her conviction based on ineffective assistance of trial counsel, impermissible hearsay testimony, faulty jury instructions and other points.
On January 25, 2012, U.S. District Court Judge Roger L. Hunt dismissed Margaret Rudin's federal habeas corpus case with prejudice. In a nine-page decision, Judge Hunt found that Rudin's federal petition was not filed in a timely manner. The ruling paves way for an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco.
On September 10, 2014, in a split decision by a three-judge panel, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order dismissing Rudin's federal habeas corpus case despite what it acknowledged to be serious issues with her representation and prosecution, both pre- and post-conviction. The court deemed that it was compelled to deny her petition, and it acknowledged that it was "troubled" by the case. Excerpts from the Opinion's Conclusion: We are troubled by the outcome of this case for many reasons. Margaret Rudin's direct appeal and collateral review proceedings have been pending in either state or federal court for a combined total of 13 years. She has potentially meritorious claims that she has suffered prejudice at the hands of her own attorneys' egregious misconduct. Yet she has never had an opportunity to present those claims in court.