BIG NEWS: Briton's Death Sentence Quashed!

[benburch]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4207185.stm

Briton's death sentence quashed

A federal appeals court in Ohio has rejected the conviction and death sentence on Briton Kenny Richey.

Mr Richey has been on Death Row since 1987 after he was convicted of killing a two-year-old girl in a fire.

The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that he must be retried within 90 days or set free.

British politicians have campaigned on behalf of Mr Richey, 40, originally from Edinburgh. His partner said she was "delighted" by the news.

<MORE AT LINK>

I wish I could post more of the article. Kenny Richey was railroaded by an Ohio politician who was running for re-election, and who knew or should have known that he was sending an innocent man to his death.

[SOteric]

1. Too much of the U.S. articulation of the death penalty

is a political expedient rather than an attempt at justice. We truly need to work to abolish this failed experiment. A death sentence isn't "tough on crime" it's the ugliest sort of politicing and racism. Good for Mr. Richey, I wish him all the best.

[benburch]

2. You should see some of the facts of the case...

They found accelerants on the carpet of the flat that burned, but only after retrieving it from the dump, and laying it out on the tarmac next to the municipal gas pumps.

They argued that Kenny, drunk, and with an arm in a cast, climbed a trellis that never have supported the weight of even a small adult.

He also supposedly got the gasoline from a nearby greenhouse whose owner says he never kept any gasoline.

The original cause of the fire was put down as accidental, but they wanted to convict somebody because a child had died, and it was an election year.

[DS1]

4. And in doing so, further proved the point that state-sponsored execution

has its faults. If this man were executed, while there could be a possibility of a retrial, the main defense witness would have been a casket.

[pretzel4gore]

3. they (pro death penalty) don't trust the government

to keep convicted killers, psychoes etc in jail for life (and neither do i, remember larry singleton?) so they railroad through capital punishment, though they never say they do not trust the authorities or the public would say 'then this is madness!' which it is....most people executed throughout history were innocent...