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Convicted Killer Wants New Trial

St. Albans, Vermont - October 6, 2009

A Richford man who gunned down a local selectman twenty years ago was back in court today using a rarely seen legal process to ask for a re-trial.

A criminal conviction in Vermont, and every other state, is never absolutely final. The appeals process never ends, and that reality was underscored today in the case of convicted killer Ronald Combs.

The 69-year-old was back in a Vermont courtroom twenty years after he was arrested for the sniper-style murder of 77-year-old Lee Felch Coy, a selectman in Richford where both men resided.

Police say Combs had held a delusional grudge against Coy for years.

Combs was charged with first-degree murder. But psychiatrists determined Combs was not mentally competent to stand trial. He was sent to the state hospital for treatment. Four years later he was ruled competent for trial.

The jury convicted him of first-degree murder, and it was upheld on appeal by the Vermont Supreme Court. But over the years Combs continued to file appeals in a civil process called post-conviction relief.

About 200 convicts a year file so-called PCR appeals. Most of them go nowhere. Only two or three a year get a full-court hearing like Combs.

Combs claims his murder-trial defense lawyer Richard Gadbois failed to fully inform him that he could have used an insanity defense, so he wants a new trial. Gadbois now says Combs rejected any suggestion of an insanity defense.

"He just didn't want to go forward on that basis. He said absolutely not. That would have involved having to immerse himself in the mental health system again. And he was not amenable to that at all," said Combs' trial lawyer Richard Gadbois.

Judge Ben Joseph took the evidence under advisement and is expected to issue a ruling in two to three months. If he rules that Combs deserves a new trial, prosecutors are certain to appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court. If Combs loses, he will continue to serve his sentence of 35 year to life and will not be eligible for parole consideration until 2017 when he will be 77-years- old.

Brian Joyce - WCAX-TV