Death penalty overturned in 1988 Fresno double murder and robbery, appeals court rules
A federal appeals court has overturned a death penalty sentence for a man prosecuted by the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office, which the court ruled deliberately used misleading testimony in 1988.
Colin Raker Dickey was convicted at age 24 in Fresno County for involvement in a drug-related robbery and double murder and was sentenced to death in 1991.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a 3-0 decision overturned the death penalty but left the robbery sentencing intact, according to the opinion issued Wednesday.
“This is an exceptional case in which the prosecutor deliberately elicited, and then failed to correct, false and misleading testimony from the state’s star witness, Gene Buchanan,” Judge Morgan Christen wrote.
Buchanan, one of Dickey’s roommates, lied to the jury under oath — a fact the prosecutor knew and did not correct in front of the jury before repeating it in his closing arguments, the opinion said.
Knowing that, the judge wrote, could have given the jury enough doubt to spare Dickey of the death penalty.
Buchanan, who met with investigators a dozen times, testified he received nothing in return for his testimony. But, the appeals court wrote that the district attorney’s office dismissed drug charges against him and helped him collect a $5,000 reward.
The panel found special circumstances after evidence showed that Dickey aided and abetted the killing of a couple — Marie Caton, 76, and Louis Freiri, 67 — in 1988 while looting the home along with Richard Cullumber for money to buy drugs.
State law allowed for the death penalty when a murder is committed in connection with another felony or for multiple murders.
Prosecutors contended that Cullumber, Caton’s grandson, knew the woman kept large amounts of cash in the house.
He died by a self-inflicted gunshot following a high-speed chase shortly after the slayings with a gun stolen during the robbery, prosecutors said.
Jurors were convinced Cullumber committed the murders and were asked to determine whether Dickey was involved in the crime, prosecutors said at the time.
Witnesses testified that Dickey and Cullumber, who were roommates, left their apartment together the night of the murders. Later, the two men returned with money to buy drugs, according to testimony.
The California Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2005.
Double murder conviction overturn response from Fresno DA
The appeals court allowed this week for the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office to retry Dickery on a capital murder charge if it chooses. DA Lisa Smittcamp assumed office in 2015.
“We are still reviewing the opinion and it is too early to offer any comment until we determine next steps,” the Fresno County DA’s Office said in a statement Thursday.
The state Attorney General’s Office, which represented the prosecution before the federal court, did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.
Neither did Dickey’s appellate lawyer, David Senior, but he spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday.
“It is astounding that after 33 years, the state of California still refuses to acknowledge that it was fundamentally wrong here to lie to a jury in order to secure a conviction and death sentence against an innocent man,” Senior told the Chronicle. “When a prosecutor knowingly presents false evidence to pursue a conviction and death sentence, he or she does so because they know it is more likely to succeed with the false evidence.”
This story was originally published June 1, 2023 at 1:09 PM.
