5th Circuit Court affirms second-degree murder conviction

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeal has affirmed the second-degree murder conviction of Ricky Langley who killed a 6-year-old boy in 1992.

In 2018, a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit overturned Langley’s conviction.

Shortly thereafter, the Calcasieu Parish District Attorney’s Office and the Louisiana Attorney General’s office joined together in asking the Court to hold a hearing in which all 17 judges of the 5th Circuit would hear the Langley case.

That took place this year and the decision was released Thursday in which a majority opinion of the 5th Circuit affirmed Langley’s conviction.

District Attorney John DeRosier, after receiving the decision, said, “We certainly concur with the opinion of the 5th Circuit. This defendant committed the most heinous, the most unspeakable act against this 6-year-old defenseless boy and he deserves the full weight of the criminal justice system.”

Attorney General Jeff Landry said, “I am grateful that the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed this murderous pedophile should remain behind bars. My office will continue to do all we can to protect our state’s children and ensure public safety in Louisiana.”

Judge Robert Wyatt earlier ordered Langley held without bond following the first ruling by the 5th Circuit.

The reversal decision by the 5th Circuit created a scenario in which Langley could have potentially been released from Angola where he has been since shortly after being convicted of the murder in 2009.

Langley said multiple times in videotaped confessions after the killing that he molested the boy, strangled him, and put his body in a closet.

A convicted sex offender at the time of the boy’s death, Langley was convicted three times for the killing of Jeremy Guillory, on Feb. 7, 1992.

DeRosier said after the first ruling by the 5th Circuit that his office would vigorously fight to keep Langley behind bars.

He said the Langley case was one of the most serious cases he has ever had and that Langley was a “huge danger” to the public.

“We are going to use every resource this office has, as long as it takes, as much as it costs, to keep this horrible killer, this murderer, in prison for the rest of his life,” DeRosier said.

In its earlier reversal, while acknowledging Langley’s crime was “horrific,” the 5th Circuit said, in part, that at Langley’s third trial, over a double jeopardy objection, the prosecution tried Langley for second-degree murder after he had been acquitted of first-degree murder in the same case at his second trial.

But the 5th Circuit’s current opinion, in a lengthy discourse citing multiple other cases, affirmed the conviction of the defendant.

Wyatt was also the judge at Langley’s third trial and like two juries before him had done, he rejected Langley’s insanity defense and found him guilty.

He imposed the mandatory penalty of life in prison without parole on his second-degree murder conviction on Dec. 10, 2009.

Although Langley could appeal his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, he remains behind bars at Angola.

Ricky Joseph Langley, then 26, is escorted into the Calcasieu Correctional Center by Donald “Lucky: DeLouche, then-assistant chief of detectives for the sheriff’s office, and Don Dixon, then-special agent with the FBI, in February of 1992.

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