Daily news from Louisville, Kentucky and Southern Indiana from courier-
journal.com
Home · News · Sports · Business · Features · Louisville Scene ·
Classifieds · Jobs · Cars · Homes · Marketplace · Contact Us ·
Search
Local/Regional » News Item Friday, August 2, 2002
Man sent to death row is acquitted in retrial
Original conviction thrown out on appeal; defendant was 17 when
Whitley couple slain
By Deborah Yetter
The Courier-Journal
Larry Osborne, 22, was ''still in shock'' after his acquittal
yesterday, his lawyer said. He spent two years on death row
after being convicted of the December 1997 murders of an
elderly Whitley County couple.
Larry Osborne -- the youngest person on Kentucky's death row -- was
acquitted yesterday at his retrial in the December 1997 murders of
an elderly Whitley County couple. He was freed immediately and left
the courthouse with his father.
Osborne, 22, whose 1998 conviction was overturned last year by the
state Supreme Court, becomes the first person in Kentucky on death
row to be found innocent since the state reinstituted the death
penalty in 1976.
''We are very happy,'' his lawyer, Gail Robinson, said yesterday.
''The jury did the right thing.''
Whitley Commonwealth's Attorney Allen Trimble could not be reached
for comment late yesterday. There was no answer in numerous calls to
his home.
Osborne, who had been held since his arrest on Dec. 31, 1997, when
he was 17, spent two years on death row.
He walked out of the courtroom a free man yesterday, Robinson said.
She said he broke down when the jury returned the innocent verdict
yesterday afternoon after about four hours of deliberation.
''He just sat there sobbing,'' Robinson said. ''He's still in
shock.''
Osborne was not available for comment yesterday. Robinson said he
was with his father and was still working out plans on where to
stay.
Osborne won a retrial after the Supreme Court ruled last year that
Whitley Circuit Judge Paul Braden was wrong to allow into evidence
at the first trial a statement made by a witness who later died,
Osborne's alleged 15-year-old accomplice. That witness, Joe Reid,
drowned in a swimming accident five months before Osborne's first
trial.
Death penalty opponents said yesterday that the case underscores
their argument that innocent people risk conviction and execution in
Kentucky.
''Huge, huge mistakes -- like innocent people going to death row --
do occur,'' Robinson said.
The Rev. Patrick Delahanty, chairman of the Kentucky Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty, said it's an example of how the system
fails people like Osborne.
''This guy was innocent and they put him on trial, they didn't have
the evidence and they convicted him,'' Delahanty said. ''That's the
system in Kentucky.''
Howard Mann, who helped prosecute Osborne in the first trial, said
Trimble had a difficult case to make without the testimony of Reid.
But he said Trimble was able to present new evidence at the retrial,
including a pair of pliers found at Osborne's home. The victims' son
testified he had left the pliers at his parents' house the day
before they were killed.
Mann said the new evidence ''didn't compel the jury to go either
way.''
Frankfort lawyer Kevin McNally, Robinson's husband and a national
expert on capital cases who represents people appealing the death
penalty, said Osborne becomes the 102nd person on death row
nationwide to be acquitted since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated
the death penalty in 1976.
''I think what it means is that there are so many questionable cases
on death row,'' McNally said.
Delahanty and other death penalty opponents have long pushed
unsuccessfully for a Kentucky law to ban the death penalty for
defendants who were juveniles at the time of the crime. Yesterday,
they said Osborne would have been spared a death sentence if
Kentucky had such a law.
''We shouldn't have a death penalty -- particularly for
teen-agers,'' Robinson said.
Osborne was charged with the Dec. 14, 1997, slayings of Sam
Davenport, 82, and his wife, Lillian Davenport, 76, after a break-in
at the home where the couple had lived for 46 years. The prosecutor
said someone disabled the elderly couple, possibly hitting them on
the head, then set the house on fire.
The Davenports died of smoke inhalation.
Osborne became a suspect after his mother, Pat Osborne, called
police to report that her son had heard breaking glass as he and
Reid rode past the Davenport home on a motorbike, according to the
court record and testimony at the first trial.
Authorities said the break-in occurred on the evening of Dec. 13 and
the murders early on Dec. 14; Pat Osborne called police around 1
a.m. on Dec. 14. The Davenports died around 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 14,
court records said.
On Dec. 31, police began questioning Reid, who insisted as he had
previously that neither he nor Osborne had anything to do with the
crime. He stuck to that story for most of the interview.
But at the end of a four-hour interview, Reid changed his story and
told police that Osborne had committed the crime while Reid watched
from outside, according to court records. Police told him afterward
they would assure prosecutors that Reid had cooperated with them.
''Is this going to get me out of all this stuff?'' Reid asked,
according to court records.
Osborne was arrested the same night.
Before Reid could testify at trial, he drowned while swimming in
Jellico, Tenn. His death was ruled accidental.
But the prosecution presented Reid's statement at trial anyway, over
objections of defense lawyers who argued it was wrong to present
evidence from a dead witness who couldn't be cross-examined. They
also argued that Reid's statement was full of inconsistencies.
Osborne was retried this time without Reid's statement. Robinson
said that substantially weakened the prosecution's case.
She said Osborne took the stand at the five-day trial and testified
on his own behalf.
''He said what he's said from day one,'' Robinson said. ''He said,
'I didn't have anything to do with this.' ''
Staff writer Joseph Gerth contributed to this story.
^^ Back to top
Subscribe!
Click here to get the C-J delivered to your door each morning.
Home · News · Sports · Business · Features · Louisville Scene
· Classifieds · Jobs · Cars · Homes · Marketplace · Contact Us
· Search
Copyright 2002 The Courier-Journal.
Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Service (updated
8/7/2001).
Send questions and comments to The Webmaster.
