Comments on Lima news article

The Article:

Time for Richey to admit guilt

MAY 11, 2003 - Kenneth Richey this week had yet another day in court, as his lawyers appeared before a three-judge panel in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to argue Richey, who was convicted of aggravated murder, deserves a new trial.
The court in Cincinnati is a federal one, as Richey's legal team exhausted its Ohio court options and is now pursuing the federal appeals route.

Richey lost his trial in January 1987 and has lost every appeal he's made in the last 16 years. His defense team has not produced in these appeals any compelling evidence to suggest he did not set the June 29, 1986, fire that killed a 2-year-old in a Columbus Grove apartment. In addition, several news organizations, including The Lima News in 1998, have done extensive investigative series and have found no strong evidence to support his innocence.

Comment:
Inflaming: Sounds like using your right to appeal is wrong.
Factually wrong: Of all investigative articles that have been made, an absolute majority expresses doubt about Kenny's guilt.
About the new evidence, and if it is compelling or not: Read this site and judge for yourself.

It's time Richey admits he set the fire, which four people earlier in the night heard him threaten to do, and let everyone else move on.

Comment:
Presumptive: What if he didn't? Should he admit anyway?
The threats of setting fire to the building is part contradictory, part hearsay and part the vague bluster of a very drunk, sad and scorned young man.
No few people utter empty threats when sad and angry, very few follow through.

The Holland-born, Scottish-raised American citizen was accused of and
convicted of setting fire to the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, Kandice Barchet, who had left Richey for another man. Prosecutors said Richey used gasoline and paint thinner to set the fire. The 2-year-old, Cynthia Collins, was alone at the time of the fire and died of smoke inhalation. Put into perspective how long the victims have waited for Richey to face punishment: Cynthia, who again was 2, would be a young woman today.

Comment:
Emotional: Kenny himself is 38, and have lost close to half his life behind bars awaiting execution.
If there was no crime, there are two victims - Cynthia a victim to accident, and Kenny a victim to the need to blame someone for it.

Richey, who rejected a plea bargain that would have given him 11 years prison time, has maintained his innocence, as he's delayed his punishment in courtroom after courtroom. In the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, Richey's lawyers argued Wednesday that the state did not use a valid method to test for the use of gasoline or paint thinner. The state countered by pointing out that six courts have determined Richey set the fire.

Comment:
The fact that Kenny refused plea bargain is that he wouldn't plead guilty to something he didn't do.
He has refused a couple of other bargains too, that all would have made him a free man today - all because he wouldn't plead guilty. If he is guilty it's of stubbornness.
Note about the methods unrelated to Lima News: The legal system, by necessity, trusts it's own institutions - sometimes too a fault. Tony Cafe, one of the expert disqualifying the methods used, felt that he had been misread/misquoted by a Judge on Appeal, he has written an article to make his view on this case perfectly clear. http://www.tcforensic.com.au/features/richey.html

Richey's lawyers also maintain that, if in fact, Richey did set the fire, he didn't intend to kill the child. That, they reason, is why he should not face the death penalty. Prosecutors maintain that, because he intended to harm the mother, he remains guilty of killing the 2-year-old under Ohio's transferred intent doctrine.

Comment:
Wrong!!!: No one, ever claimed that Kenny would like to hurt Hope Collins (the mother).
What has been claimed, is that he wanted to kill his former girlfriend - who lived downstairs from the apartment that caught fire. It was well known that Kenny liked the kid. He even tried to get her out of the blaze at the risk of his own life. He had to be restrained not to go in again.

The federal appeals court in Cincinnati is expected to take three to six months to rule. After that, assuming Richey loses again, his last option is to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Even his lawyers admit it's unlikely the court will hear the case.

Should the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals join in the string of courts that have ruled against Richey, let's hope his lawyers' doubts about their chances to be heard in the Supreme Court keep them from pursuing this any further. Richey threatened to set the apartment on fire, the apartment caught on fire that very night and a young child died. It's about time for Richey to do the same, if only by lethal injection.

End-comment:
As stated, everyone is entitled to an opinion.
However... I dare the author of this article to go through the evidence thoroughly, read up on the experts opinions, correct the misconceptions and then say the same thing again with a straight face.
Writing for the media you have a heavy responsibility. You reach a lot of people, and while they're smart enough to form their own opinions, they tend to rely on you to handle your facts straight. If you don't you start myths.
This case is riddled with myth. Myth may well get Kenny killed.
If so he might as well not have been restrained at the fire, that he might at least have died trying to save Cynthia from the blaze.