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Home Kenny Richey Supreme Court is asked to reconsider Richey case Supreme Court is asked to reconsider Richey case
Monday, 26 December 2005
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU
COLUMBUS - Kenneth Richey's attorneys planned to ask the U.S. Supreme Court last night to reconsider a November decision reinstating his murder conviction and death sentence while sending part of his appeal back to a lower court.
A 6th Circuit panel wrote in a 2-1 decision that a "competent arson expert - would have all but demolished the state's scientific evidence."
"There's no need to send this back to the 6th Circuit," Mr. Parsigian said. "The state expressly waived it."
Richey, a British-U.S. citizen, was convicted in the 1986 arson murder of 2-year-old Cynthia Collins of Columbus Grove. He remains on death row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution.
On Nov. 28, the Supreme Court overturned a 6th Circuit ruling that gave Putnam County Prosecutor Gary Lammers 90 days to retry Richey, 41, or set him free.
The court found that, under Ohio law, it didn't matter that the girl was not Richey's intended victim but, rather, his ex-girlfriend and lover in the apartment below.
Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's office declined comment on the latest move of Richey's lawyers.
Mr. Parsigian has maintained that the ineffective-counsel issue was the stronger of the two issues and should alone be enough to win Richey a new trial.
Boston attorney Ken Parsigian argues that the issue sent back to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals - whether Richey's lawyers were ineffective during his trial - had been settled in February.