Scot jailed in US for killing could be freed or sentenced to death in landmark case

Tom Richey was jailed in 1987 aged 18 for shooting two people and killing one while on the psychoactive drug LSD The Herald reports.

He was spared the death penalty and instead handed a 65 year prison sentence, but could now end up on death row.

In 2008 Mr Richey’s older brother Kenny was freed from death row after he served 21 years in prison in Ohio for starting a fire that killed a two-year-old baby girl.

At the age of 17, Mr Richey’s flew to the US to enlist in the US Special Forcesnear Tacoma in Washington State.

His court-appointed lawyer, Larry Nichols, said: “The day following the shootings, Tom turned himself in and confessed, which left me few cards to play with.

“Sixty-five years is three times higher than the standard sentence for murder, but it’s a great deal better than the death penalty.”

In a telephone interview from Washington State Penitentiary Mr Richey told The Herald: “Since entering prison, I’ve focused on educating myself and being a better person.

“People always judge you by your worst moment, but we’re a sum of many parts.

“That’s not to say I’m marginalising what I did. I senselessly took a life and there’s no undoing that, ever.”

In 2004, the US Supreme Court announced that the procedure used to sentence defendants like Mr Richey was unlawful – but the ruling did not have retrospective effect.

He said: “It disappointed me, but I’m in no position to complain. Whether the length of my sentence is unlawful doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right price I deserve to pay.

“But I am human, so I still feel human desires, like the desire to be free.”

The Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held last November that he was entitled to a federal review, with a decision due from the Western District Court in Washington in the coming weeks.

Peter Aveno, a lawyer assigned to the Northwest Federal Public Defender’s Office in Seattle explained the importance of the case.

He said: “Richey’s case is the first on record in the history of American jurisprudence, where a court has arbitrarily entered a judgment of conviction without satisfying the necessities of due process, such as the right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers.

“If the district court doesn’t order the state court to vacate the conviction, then they’ll effectively open the door to states to abolish the due process protections guaranteed by the sixth and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution.”

While Mr Richey expects to be freed, Mr Nichols did not think the case would be clear cut.

He said: “In the event Tom’s conviction is vacated, he’ll return to square one.

“He’ll face the remaining original murder charge, a capital offence, and be subject to the death penalty again.

“Of course, it would be difficult to try such an old case, where evidence has been destroyed and witnesses have passed away and dispersed.”