A nearly five-year-old murder case has taken a new twist after a Senior Judge found ineffective assistance of counsel. Alicia Ritenour’s 2014 first-degree murder conviction in the death of her ... daughter, Ava, was overturned by Senior Judge Dan Wilson on the grounds that her trial counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel in multiple ways...
Ritenour’s attorney attempted to introduce evidence of meth use by Logan Cavan, who was a witness for the state, in pointing the finger at him in the death of Ava...
Judge Dan Wilson wrote that the case was primarily a circumstantial case, coming down to who was more credible.
“Because this case had no physical evidence that directly connected Ava’s death to Ritenour, it relied solely on credibility and circumstantial evidence. The introduction of another person who had motive to kill Ava has a substantial likelihood of affecting the outcome of the trial,” Wilson wrote.
