The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit re-affirmed its 2005 rul­ing that Kenny Richey​’s cap­i­tal con­vic­tion and death sen­tence should be over­turned because he received inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion at tri­al. Richey is on death row for the 1986 arson mur­der of a two-year-old girl who was in his care, an event that he main­tains was an acci­dent. Richey is a dual cit­i­zen of the U.S. and Scotland, hav­ing been raised in Scotland before com­ing to Ohio. The Sixth Circuit ruled 2 – 1 that Richey’s tri­al attor­ney failed to ade­quate­ly chal­lenge ques­tion­able arson evi­dence at tri­al, not­ing, ​“The defi­cient per­for­mance of Richey’s coun­sel under­mines our con­fi­dence in the out­come of his tri­al.… Confronted with evi­dence debunk­ing the state’s sci­en­tif­ic con­clu­sions, the tri­al court might have had a rea­son­able doubt about Richey’s guilt, espe­cial­ly where the prosecution’s case depend­ed on a cast of wit­ness­es whose lives revolved around drink­ing and par­ty­ing and some of whom might have had their own motives for implicating Richey.”

The Court’s 2005 rul­ing was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court and sent back to the Sixth Circuit to con­sid­er whether Richey had lost his right to present evi­dence of inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel that had not been raised in state court. In its rul­ing this month, the Sixth Circuit held that Richey’s claim was prop­er and rein­stat­ed the 2005 order over­turn­ing his con­vic­tion. County Prosecutor Gary Lammers said he believes the Ohio Attorney General will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear anoth­er appeal based on the Circuit Court’s lat­est rul­ing, but added that retry­ing the case could be dif­fi­cult because of the time that has elapsed since Richey’s 1987 con­vic­tion. Richey’s fight to prove his inno­cence has spanned more than two decades and has drawn atten­tion in Europe and the U.S. The late Pope John Paul II and a for­mer Archbishop of Canterbury are among those who urged the courts to free Richey, whose efforts to prove his inno­cence led him to turn down a plea bar­gain that would have freed him after 11 years in prison.

​“Kenny Richey has served 21 years in prison for a crime that nev­er should have been a death penal­ty case to begin with,” said Richey’s attor­ney, Kenneth Parsigian. ​“The 6th Circuit has twice found he was wrong­ly con­vict­ed. Now is not the time to be venge­ful, spite­ful, or pride­ful about pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al skill. It’s time for jus­tice. It’s time to let Kenny move on with his life.”
(The Times of London, August 11, 2007 and Toledo Blade, August 11, 2007). See Innocence.

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