Death row inmate seeks new lawyer for appeal in Greensburg torture killing case

A death row inmate convicted in the 2010 torture and murder of a mentally disabled woman in Greensburg wants a new lawyer after waiting more than three years for his court-appointed counsel to file an appeal.

Ricky Smyrnes, 34, formerly of North Huntingdon, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection in connection with the fatal stabbing of 30-year-old Jennifer Daugherty in an apartment he shared with five others more than a decade ago.

Pittsburgh lawyer Thomas Farrell was appointed in 2017 to handle the second appeal, which is expected to challenge the quality of Smyrnes’ legal representation during his 2013 trial. Smyrnes, in a letter sent from death row at SCI Phoenix in Montgomery County, claims he has been unable to communicate with Farrell and asked Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Scott Mears to appoint him a new lawyer.

Farrell refuted those allegations. In court documents filed this week, he said he intends to remain on the job. Farrell said he met twice in person with Smyrnes while he was housed at the state prison in Greene County and has spoken by phone and communicated through letters on at least 32 occasions, including most recently on Nov. 4. During that conversation, Smyrnes claimed he was satisfied with his lawyer and wanted him to remain on the job, Farrell said.

“It is true that this is a slow process and that petitioner is stressed. The fact is that in Pennsylvania the death penalty will not be carried out and everyone on death row feels that stress,” Farrell wrote, noting that an aspect of Smyrnes’ appeal will challenge Pennsylvania’s death penalty as a cruel punishment.

County prosecutors charged that Smyrnes was the head of the group of three men and three woman who held Daugherty captive for more than two days, and beat and tortured her before tying her with Christmas lights, stabbing her in the heart and discarding her in a trash can left under a truck in a snow-covered parking lot.

Witnesses said Smyrnes led a series of “family meetings” in which he and his roommates voted to kill Daugherty.

Smyrnes has had a string of taxpayer-funded lawyers during the case, including two who were appointed by county judges to handle his appeals.

According to court records, more than $135,000 of taxpayer money was used to pay Smyrnes’ lawyers and experts hired to assist with his defense. Farrell has not yet billed for his work.

Farrell said he continues to work on the appeal that initially had a late 2017 deadline to be filed. Multiple times since then, Farrell asked for and was granted 90-day extensions. Mears issued the latest extension on Jan. 11.

“This is a very complicated appeal,” Farrell said. “I assume it will be filed within six months.”

Farrell said he has reviewed two boxes of materials, including nearly 1,500 pages of court transcripts.

Smyrnes’ initial appeal was rejected in 2016 by Judge Rita Hathaway, a ruling that was upheld by the state’s Supreme Court. A month after Smyrnes filed another appeal in 2017, Farrell was appointed by Hathaway to research and prepare a challenge of the conviction and sentence.

Mears is expected to schedule a hearing on Smyrnes’ request for a new lawyer later this year.