Convict wants DNA testing of bomb debris that killed Franklin County judge

Ricky Anthony Young has insisted for four decades that he had nothing to do with the pipe bomb that killed a Superior Court judge in his Franklin County Courthouse chambers.

Law enforcement always believed several people were involved in the 1974 crime, but they’ve maintained they got the right guy because Young’s partial fingerprints were found on bomb fragments.

DNA testing did not exist when Young was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of Judge James Lawless.

Scientific advances since then may bring about more answers, but first Young needs the OK from a sitting judge.

After numerous attempts to have further testing done on what’s left of the bomb materials, the 64-year-old inmate now has the backing of the Innocence Project Northwest.

The legal clinic, which is part of the University of Washington School of Law, reviews claims of innocence by Washington prisoners and works to free those who have been wrongfully convicted.

It was founded by Professor Jacqueline McMurtrie in 1997 and has exonerated at least a dozen people since 1999.

McMurtrie and staff attorney M. Fernanda Torres are asking for an order to conduct post-conviction DNA testing on 24 pieces of evidence in Young’s case that have been kept by the Franklin County Clerk’s Office and the Sheriff’s Office.

A hearing is scheduled Dec. 1 in Franklin County Superior Court.

“Mr. Young insisted on his innocence at the time of the trial and has continued to maintain his innocence in the 40 years since,” the attorneys wrote.

He “seeks DNA testing that was unavailable at the time of his trial and which has the potential to scientifically establish his innocence and identify the true perpetrator of the crime.”

The request is to submit the physical evidence to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab for testing and comparison against Young’s DNA.

The items include a portion of an address label from the outside of the package, a fingerprint matched to Young, a miniature phone jack and pull pin, cotton packing, fragments of pipe and wire used in the electrical circuitry of the bomb, and black electrical tape used to insulate the wire.

The motion also asks to have an unmatched print that was found on the bomb package to be tested against finger, palm and footprints in the national database for a possible connection.

Prosecutor: Young had ‘beefs’ with judge

Young was the only person ever charged with the crime. He claimed he was fishing with his family on the Columbia River at the time the package was believed to have been mailed in Kennewick.

It took two trials to convict him of murder for mailing the package. The first ended in a mistrial when the jury couldn’t reach a verdict.

He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 77 years, and currently is housed at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

Young has an estimated earliest release date of September 2031, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Former prosecutor Jim Rabideau, who handled both trials, called the fingerprint evidence “damning.” He has said he believed Young had “beefs” with the judge and Benton-Franklin Superior Court.

Young was from Prosser and had an extensive criminal record.

Lawless died just days before he was to consider revoking Young’s probation for a 1971 burglary of a Prosser drug store. Young also had a pending arson case at the time of the bombing.

Package was marked ‘personal’

Lawless was in his chambers on June 3, 1974, when a small box wrapped in brown packing paper was delivered to the Franklin County Courthouse.

The package initially had been picked up at the Prosser post office by a clerk and taken to the Benton County Courthouse in Prosser. It was marked “personal,” so the court clerk who typically opened all mail set it aside for the judge.

A court reporter then drove the package to Pasco and placed it in the judge’s chambers.

Lawless was alone when he tore off the wrapper, triggering the pipe bomb that ended his life.

The 50-year-old father of five had been on the Superior Court bench for 18 years.

A break in the case came two months later when two partial fingerprints matching Young were discovered by federal agents underneath tape on a piece of paper from the deadly package.

The wooden box, which was about the size of a legal envelope box, also had other fingerprints.

Shortly after Young was arrested, a group calling itself “The People’s Army” sent letters to at least three news agencies, including the Tri-City Herald. The identical three-page letters claimed Young wasn’t responsible and contained detailed information about the bomb and its manufacturer.

Attorneys: ‘Fingerprint identifications are fallible’

Young long ago exhausted his direct appeals process, so in 2001 he took advantage of a change in Washington law that allowed felons serving prison time to request DNA testing at the state’s expense.

Young’s then-longtime attorney, Sid Wurzburg, asked for testing on the three letters from The People’s Army and postage stamp fragments from the bomb.

Wurzburg at the time felt the developments in science were enough to reliably test the small amount of saliva on the stamps.

Three years later, officials announced that forensic scientists managed to extract enough DNA from the package stamp fragments and an Expo ‘74 label. Further tests reportedly excluded Young, which his lawyers say supports the argument that he did not package or mail the bomb.

Now they want to test the debris from inside the package in the hopes of proving he did not make or manufacture the bomb.

The motion filed this month by McMurtrie and Torres says “fingerprint identifications are fallible” and the testimony of a jailhouse informant, used in the second trial, “is inherently unreliable.”

The attorneys argue that DNA testing of the partial fingerprints have “the potential to scientifically and conclusively establish (they are) not Mr. Young’s, and thus sever the only physical tie between Mr. Young and the crime of which he was convicted.”

This story was originally published November 28, 2015 at 9:18 PM with the headline "Convict wants DNA testing of bomb debris that killed Franklin County judge."