Kenny Richey to be freed at last?

See my post of July 12, 2005 for more background

A Scottish man who has spent more than two decades on death row in the United States could walk free within weeks after a US court reaffirmed its decision to overturn his death sentence. Kenny Richey, 42, was condemned to death in 1987 for the aggravated murder of a two-year-old girl who died in a fire that he was accused of starting to exact revenge on a former girlfriend. The case attracted attention from the late Pope John Paul II and a former Archbishop of Canterbury and has been taken up by Amnesty International.

Richey, who is being held at the maximum-security Mansfield Correctional Institution in Ohio, was told that the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had ordered that he should be retried or released within 90 days. “I spoke to Kenny this morning. He was very excited and happy to hear this news. It’s something we have been waiting to hear for some time now,” Daryl Wiesen, his Boston-based lawyer, said. “He wanted to speak to his family. He was in a very good mood.” His former fiancée, who remarried her former husband last year but continued to campaign for Richey, said that she was delighted that his ordeal was nearly over. “I think that this is it now,” Karen Torley said, from her home in Glasgow. “Obviously we are not at the finish line yet. They have to make a decision to retry or release him in 90 days, and the state will appeal. I would hope that they will not drag out endless appeals for more months. This has gone on for over 21 years now and enough is enough.”

The Court of Appeals reaffirmed its previous ruling of January 2005 — later set aside by the Supreme Court — that Richey had received an inadequate legal defence. “There can be little doubt that Richey was prejudiced by his counsel’s deficient performance,” the court held. “There is a reasonable probability that had his counsel mounted the available defence that the fire was caused by an accident, and was not the result of arson at all, the outcome of either the guilt or the penalty phase would have been different.”

The ruling means that the Attorney-General in Ohio must decide whether to appeal once again to the Supreme Court. The local prosecutor in Putnam County must decide whether to retry Richey or to drop the case. “I would hope all these people would realise that holding someone wrongly on death row for 21 years is enough and they would decide not to appeal or retry,” Mr Wiesen said.

If officials take no further action against Richey, he could be free within weeks. The Court of Appeals decision would become effective in ten days and would then be ratified formally by the trial court. Richey’s backers expect a new appeal and possibly a retrial. If the prosecutor for Putnam County decides to retry Richey, his lawyers will ask for him to be released on bail.

John Watson, director of Amnesty International Scotland, said: “This is fantastic news and represents the opportunity that Kenny has long fought for — the chance to clear his name in a proper trial. Nobody should be sent to the living hell of death row but Kenny Richey’s 20-year ordeal came after a flawed trial and serious concerns about the Ohio justice system.”

Originally from Edinburgh, Richey has an American father and moved to the US at the age of 18, becoming a Marine. He was arrested aged 21 after Cynthia Collins, whom he had offered to babysit, died in a fire at New Farm Village Apartments in Columbus Grove, Ohio, in the early hours of June 30, 1986. Prosecutors said that Richey had been smoking marijuana and drinking and had started the fire to gain revenge on his former lover, Candy Barchet, who was with another man in the flat below.

The prosecution claimed that Richey stole petrol and paint thinner from a greenhouse and poured them in the living room and patio before igniting them. The Court of Appeals found that his lawyer did not properly represent him by failing to argue that the fire was an accident, as Richey insists.

Report here



(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today)