Toledo Blade - Editorial

Kenny Richey was found guilty in 1987 on four charges in a fatal blaze at an apartment complex in Columbus Grove, O., north of Lima, in which a 2-year-old girl died. He was sentenced to death, and that sentence has been upheld by a state appeals court and the Ohio Supreme Court.

But there remain questions about the evidence in the Richey case sufficient to raise doubts here and in Britain about its outcome. And when such doubts exist among citizens and members of the legal establishment in this country's closest ally, whose legal system provided the model for ours, it behooves us to ensure every right is afforded the defendant - including the right to the quality of legal representation that he now has.

The Blade spent months investigating the Richey case. Staff Writer George Tanber traveled to England and Scotland in pursuit of the story. We now believe that a full hearing of the evidence is warranted before the U.S. District Court in Cleveland.

Richey's new counsel should have an opportunity to make several points. Among the most telling are:

• The central defect at Richey's trial was that there was no expert testimony for the defense to contest prosecution claims that the fire which led to the girl's death was, in fact, arson. Gregory DuBois, the defense expert on the fire, ended up testifying for the prosecution. A nationally qualified expert who has since reviewed the matter fully is prepared to testify that all the expert testimony at trial was scientifically flawed.
• In writing the three-judge panel's opinion on why Richey deserved the death penalty, Judge Michael J. Corrigan, the presiding judge, cited "unrefuted evidence" that Richey disconnected a fire alarm in the apartment. In fact, no evidence linking Richey to the fire alarm had been raised; only the fact that the alarm was disconnected. Judge Corrigan inferred two things - that Richey did the disconnecting, and that he did it to prevent the fire being discovered - from a neutral fact that the alarm was disconnected.
• Richey's attorney, public defender William Kluge, has admitted to making mistakes. The petition by his new attorney, Ken Parsigian, makes a compelling case that there were numerous errors in Richey's defense.
• Attorney Kluge's most obvious mistake was not asking Peggy Price Villearreal, a neighbor of Richey, how the fire alarm had been disconnected. She now says she and other residents of the apartment complex regularly disconnected the alarms in their own apartments.

This evidence would undermine Judge Corrigan's crucial conclusion regarding Richey's responsibility for disconnecting the fire alarm.

We recognize that a competent job was done by Putnam County prosecutor Daniel Gerschutz in his county's first death penalty case since 1874. Furthermore, this newspaper has been in the past, and is today, a stalwart defender of the death penalty in capital cases in Ohio and around the country. In that context it is unusual for us to intercede in a case such as that of Kenny Richey.

But the lingering questions about the case here and in Britain, some of which we have elucidated above, make it essential that we be certain the justice system is operated properly. We cannot have that certainty without a full hearing of the evidence that Richey's counsel has brought forward.