A fed­er­al appeals court has ruled that Ohio must either retry British for­eign nation­al Kenny Richey with­in 90 days or free him from death row. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit threw out Richey’s 1987 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in the arson death of 2‑year-old Cynthia Collins, rul­ing that pros­e­cu­tors failed to offer suf­fi­cient evi­dence of Richey’s guilt. The court also found that his court-appoint­ed attor­ney was ​“out­side the wide range of pro­fes­sion­al­ly com­pe­tent assis­tance” because he failed to chal­lenge the state’s evi­dence. The opin­ion stat­ed: ​“The record indi­cates that a com­pe­tent arson expert — ful­ly informed and super­vised, and using the meth­ods avail­able to him at the time of the tri­al — would have all but demol­ished the state’s sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence, and with it a large part of the case against Richey.… Based on the state of the law at the time of his actions, the only way that Richey could have been con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly con­vict­ed of aggra­vat­ed felony mur­der would have been upon a show­ing that Richey intend­ed to kill the per­son that actu­al­ly died. Because it is undis­put­ed that there was no evi­dence to that effect, Richey’s con­vic­tion nec­es­sar­i­ly lacked the sup­port of suf­fi­cient evi­dence.” (Emphasis added). 

Richey is the only British for­eign nation­al on death row in the United States, and his case has been close­ly mon­i­tored in the United Kingdom. In response to the rul­ing, Alistair Carmichael, a mem­ber of the British Parliament who vis­it­ed Richey in 2004, stat­ed that it was ​“excel­lent news for all of us who have cam­paigned to high­light the flaws in the con­duct of Kenny Richey’s ini­tial tri­al. Where so much doubt exists about the safe­ty of a con­vic­tion it would be an offense against human­i­ty to car­ry out a death sen­tence.” (Toledo Blade, January 26, 2005). See Foreign Nationals and Innocence.

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