Rory Foster, serving a 50-year prison sentence for the April 2006 murder of Iolan Briawna Hardrick, is seeking a new trial.
Foster filed papers this week with the Allen County District Court, claiming he should either be granted a new trial or be released from prison.
Foster claimed attorneys and court officials were “unfit/neglect” [sic] and refused his request for a change of venue prior to his conviction in 2008. He also said his arrest was based on hearsay and that he was not in Kansas the night of Hardrick’s murder.
Foster alleged his attorneys neglected to question his accuser “on important facts” and used “ineffective doctor’s and expired doctor’s reports on the petitioner’s case, despite an obvious conflict of interest.” Foster said Allen Countians were “blinded by hate and ware (sic) unfit to assist with a proper outcome.”
In addition to the murder charge, Foster also was convicted of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated arson, aggravated battery and making criminal threats. Many elements of Foster’s crimes were told to jurors by Iolan Rachel Reeder, who escaped the home in which Hardrick was killed after Reeder left the premises.
Foster also said that both prior to his original conviction and after the verdict was upheld at a Topeka appeals court, the courts violated his Sixth Amendment rights, which grant a person the right to a trial in front of a jury of his peers and to public counsel.
Foster went through numerous public defenders before his conviction and was ultimately sentenced to a so-called “Hard 50,” meaning all 50 years of his sentence must be served. He would be 77 before he would eligible for parole.
An appellate court upheld Foster’s conviction in June.
He is being held in the El Dorado Correctional Facility.
Murderer seeks new trial
