DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Attorney General's Office has asked the state Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling that threw out the conviction of a Burlington man in his ex-wife's death.
Attorney general spokesman Geoff Greenwood told The Burlington Hawk Eye (http://bit.ly/ooAhqS ) that the request was filed Thursday in the case of Dennis Richards, who was convicted of murder and arson in the 2007 death of 46-year-old Cyd Richards and sentenced to 60 years in prison. The high court has no deadline to decide whether to review the case or issue an opinion.
Last month, the Iowa Court of Appeals reversed Richards' conviction because a Des Moines County District Court judge excluded testimony from a witness who would have suggested Richards wasn't strong enough to strangle his ex-wife. A new trial has been ordered.
Cyd Richards was found in her burning home in January 2009. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Prosecutors claimed Richards, now 61, strangled his ex-wife with just his hands before setting fire to her home. The couple had divorced in 2007 but planned to remarry.
After at least two delays, trial was scheduled for Dec. 1, 2009, but eight days before proceedings began, Richards' attorney notified prosecutors and the court of an additional witness, a physical therapist who would testify that Richards lacked the hand strength to kill his ex-wife.
The state sought to keep the physical therapist from testifying, arguing they would not have enough time to depose him before trial, and the judge agreed. She said in her decision that she was concerned the trial could not be postponed further without the possibility of the charges against Richards being dismissed, since it had been nearly a year since he had been arraigned and the deadline for when the trial needed to be held was approaching.
The appeals court disagreed, saying there are exceptions that would have allowed for the trial to be delayed and the expert defense witness to testify.
Richards remains in prison pending a new trial.
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