Wisconsin Supreme Court upholds conviction of Richard Arrington in 2016 homicide in Green Bay

MADISON - The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the conviction in a 2016 Green Bay homicide, reversing an appeals court decision calling for a new trial.

Richard Arrington of Milwaukee was convicted in 2018 in Brown County Circuit Court of shooting and killing Ricardo Gomez on April 2, 2016, outside a house on Day Street in Green Bay.

An appeals court in 2021 granted a new trial, ruling that Arrington's rights were violated when an inmate in the Brown County Jail secretly recorded his conversation without a lawyer present. Arrington also argued that his defense was ineffective because his lawyer didn't object to the recordings at trial.

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that Arrington's Sixth Amendment right to counsel was not violated when the secret recording was made because the inmate "was not acting as a state agent when he recorded his conversations with Arrington."

The court ruled that Arrington "prompted the initial conversation," and the inmate voluntarily approached law enforcement to make the recording and was not directed about which questions to ask.

It also did not find that the defense counsel was deficient. In writing for the majority, Justice Patience Roggensack wrote that the recording wouldn't have changed the outcome of the trial given the evidence presented and the numerous witnesses who testified against Arrington. "The recordings merely provided additional discrediting support," she wrote.

More: Richard Arrington found guilty, headed for sentencing for murder of Ricardo Gomez in Green Bay

More: Arrington sentenced for killing man in Day Street shooting

In reversing the appeals court decision, the Supreme Court reinstituted the circuit court's homicide conviction.

Arrington was sentenced to life in prison, with eligibility for parole after 35 years. After a six-day trial in November 2017, the jury convicted Arrington of first-degree intentional homicide and of being a felon in possession.

Arrington shot and killed Gomez while trying to shoot a different man, firing a handgun from the driver's seat of a car at two men on the porch of a house. Gomez died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: State Supreme Court upholds conviction in 2016 homicide in Green Bay