Supreme Court denies Ritenour request for further review
Alicia Ritenour
OSKALOOSA- The Iowa Supreme Court has denied Alicia Ritenour’s request for further review in her case. Ritenour was convicted of first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death in November 2014 after a week-long jury trial. The trial came after Ritenour’s young daughter Ava was found deceased in her apartment in January 2014. Ritenour was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in January 2015. A divided Iowa Court of Appeals panel affirmed Ritenour’s conviction in June. In order for Ritenour’s case to have been heard by the Supreme Court, at least four of the seven justices had to agree to hear the case.
Despite the court’s decision, Ritenour’s case is far from over.
In the June ruling by the Iowa Court of Appeals, the court preserved three claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. The court first preserved a claim that Ritenour’s trial attorney, Michael Adams, failed to secure a ruling from trial Judge Myron Gookin regarding a state’s witness methamphetamine use “as it relates to his motive and intent.” Ritenour’s attorney had been attempting to introduce evidence that Logan Cavan, a witness for the state and a resident in Ritenour’s apartment at the time of the crime, was suffering from methamphetamine withdrawal affects and could have possibly committed the crime, rather than Ritenour.
The court also preserved two additional claims of ineffective assistance of counsel when her attorney did not object to statements from four separate witnesses for the state, which speculated as to her credibility.
In addition to the June Iowa Court of Appeals ruling, Ritenour’s trial attorney filed a motion for a new trial in November 2015 on the basis of newly discovered evidence. The newly discovered evidence cited in the motion was a six-page written statement from Jennifer Lobberecht, an inmate at the Mahaska County Jail at the time the statement was written. In her statement, Lobberecht stated that Jacob Rauch, a witness for the state in Ritenour’s trial, confessed to her that he had killed Ritenour’s daughter Ava, not Alicia.
Judge Myron Gookin initially stayed her attorney’s motion for a new trial, pending the resolution of the appeal of her conviction. Online court records show that a hearing on the pending motion for a new trial has not been set yet.
Because the Iowa Court of Appeals preserved her claims of ineffective of assistance, Ritenour may file a petition for post-conviction relief, and request, among other relief, that she be granted a new trial.
In September 2015, Bradley Arterburn’s 2012 first-degree murder conviction was overturned by Judge Randy DeGeest at a post-conviction relief proceeding. His re-trial is set for March 2017.
