Richey hospitalised a day after death row reprieve

Kenny Richey: says he is 'full of hostility and rage'. Photograph: PA

Profile: Kenny Richey

Dan Glaister in Los Angeles, Fred Attewill and agencies

Thursday December 20, 2007

A British man who was due to be released today after spending 20 years on death row in the US has been taken to hospital suffering from chest pains.
Kenny Richey, 43, had hoped to fly back to Scotland for Christmas after a plea bargain deal was reached with prosecutors, but he fell ill in prison this morning.
He was due to enter a plea of no contest to charges of involuntary manslaughter, child endangering, and breaking and entering in a hearing scheduled for today at a court in Ohio. But now court officials have said his hearing has been postponed until January 8.

His lawyer said it was not clear if Richey, who has already suffered two heart attacks since he was sentenced to death in January 1987, would need surgery.
"We have an agreement with prosecutors that as soon as he is healthy enough we will move to gat him released," Ken Parsigan told Sky News.
"Sadly it's unlikely we will be able to get him home for Christmas."
The Scot's former fiancée Karen Torley, who has campaigned for his release, said his ill health was a "cruel blow".

Richey, a former US marine who left his mother's Edinburgh home to live with his American father in Ohio, was arrested in July 1986 for the murder of two-year-old Cynthia Collins. Prosecutors alleged he had deliberately started a fire to get even with a former girlfriend who lived in the same apartment building as the toddler.

Richey always maintained his innocence and in August this year a federal appeals court ruled that his trial lawyers had mishandled the case and ordered him to be retried or released within 90 days. The court ruling said expert testimony could have contended that the fire was not intentionally set.

Prosecutors said they would retry the case in March next year, but subsequently agreed to the plea deal, giving Richey credit for time served. Following the appeal Richey was moved off death row.
"It is the greatest Christmas present that I or Kenny could have asked for," Persigian told the Press Association. The state wanted him to plead guilty and he would not do that. They have agreed to drop murder, to drop the arson and took the most basic minor face-saving deal of no contest. There was nothing left for them to fight about."

A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but a statement that no defence will be presented. Richey refused an earlier plea deal which would have seen him serve an 11-year sentence for arson and manslaughter.

Clive Stafford-Smith of the British legal charity Reprieve, who has helped Richey's legal case for 15 years, said: "This case epitomises what is wrong with the capital punishment system.
"An innocent man gets a death sentence because he had an incompetent lawyer at trial, his conviction is reversed two decades later, and then he has to enter a plea to avoid a second death sentence. It was the right thing to do - nobody can expect him to trust a system that already got it so terribly wrong - but it's an insane process, nevertheless."

Scottish MP Alistair Carmichael, who has campaigned for Richey's release, said: "The reality of somebody who is kept locked up in a cell for 23 hours a day for 19 years is quite mind-blowing. It is a dreadful, inhumane and dehumanising system. If one man is off it, then remember there are hundreds of people in America still enduring that dreadful situation."
Richey's case attracted considerable support, and was described by Amnesty International as "one of the most compelling cases of apparent innocence human rights campaigners have ever seen."

Amnesty International UK's director, Kate Allen, said: "This is really wonderful news and we're delighted for Kenny and his family and supporters. The death penalty is always a human rights outrage, achieving nothing but suffering and injustice, and in this case Kenny suffered from particularly shoddy justice."

Torley said: "It's been an incredibly long fight for justice but we're finally seeing some semblance of that. Along with his family I'll be planning a Welcome home to Scotland party for Kenny. He has a lot of life to catch up on."