Dieter Riechmann case

February 14, 2006 on 1:41 pm | In Case news | No Comments |

German accused of killing girlfriend asks Fl. court for new trial

By DAVID ROYSE
Associated Press Writer

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Lawyers for a German man convicted of killing his girlfriend almost two decades ago argued to the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday that evidence showing he may have been a victim of prosecutors who urged witnesses to lie has been ignored.

Dieter Riechmann was convicted in 1988 of murdering Kersten Kischnick while the two were visiting Florida from Rheinfelden, Germany, in late 1987.

Riechmann had driven up to a police officer in Miami Beach and frantically told police that he and Kischnick had gotten lost while driving and that a man approached their car and apparently shot the woman.

Eventually Riechmann was charged with the murder; prosecutors said he stood to receive a life insurance payment on Kischnick. Prosecutors also said Riechmann had benefited financially from Kischnick working as a prostitute, but some sort of health problem was threatening her ability to work.

Riechmann was initially sentenced to death, and his conviction has been upheld in appeals. But in one appeal, the courts ordered a new sentencing, which so far has not happened.

Lawyers for Riechmann say a key witness in his trial has since changed his story and alleged that prosecutors encouraged him to lie when he testified. They also say a former police officer has alleged that prosecutors also encouraged him to lie, and that taken together the two men’s testimony shows a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct that should result in Riechmann getting a new trial.

The case has drawn intense interest in Germany, and a representative of the German consulate attended the oral arguments before the court, but didn’t participate.

Riechmann’s lead attorney, Martin McLain, said lower court judges have refused to allow evidence to be introduced in the case that damning trial testimony may have been fabricated and that information about some evidence at trial may have been wrong.

“This case, on some level, puts the Florida criminal justice system on trial,” McLain said. “You can’t really have a balanced system when you’ve got a prosecutor coercing witnesses to lie. And there needs to be some means for hearing this and being able to present the evidence that shows this.”

The witness, Walter Smykowski, was a cellmate of Riechmann’s before his murder trial. He testified in the trial that Riechmann had mentioned the prospect of becoming a millionaire, and also “turned white” when asked whether he killed Kischnick.

But years later, Smykowski told a German journalist that prosecutors urged him to make those claims, which weren’t true. He also said he was allowed to leave jail to visit his daughter and was promised money for the allegedly false testimony.

Riechmann’s lawyers wanted to take new testimony from Smykowski – who now lives in the United Arab Emirate of Dubai – but were denied by a judge.

The state argued that the judge was right to deny the request because Riechmann’s lawyers couldn’t provide enough information about the potential testimony as required by the law. They couldn’t even say for sure where Smykowski was.

The state argues that the former police officer’s new testimony would be irrelevant, because he never testified at the first trial. And, the state argues, the officer’s information was available to defense attorneys all along, and they didn’t present it earlier when they had the chance.

A spokesman for the Miami-Dade County state prosecutor’s office, Ed Griffith, said he couldn’t say much about specific allegations that prosecutors persuaded witnesses to lie because the case was still in the courts, and might eventually be reopened.

But generally, he dismissed the allegations.

“The Supreme Court has already reviewed the Riechmann case twice … and upheld the conviction and we’re confident they will again,” Griffith said.

©2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.