Randy Roth To Appeal Murder Conviction -- Trial In Wife's Drowning Was Tainted, Lawyer Says

Randy Roth today was expected to file a 12-pronged appeal of his first-degree murder conviction.

Defense attorney George Cody has said he intended to appeal from the moment in April that the jury found Roth guilty of drowning his wife in Lake Sammamish.

The Woodinville mechanic, 37, was sentenced two weeks ago by King County Superior Court Judge Frank Sullivan to 50 years in prison. Prosecutors successfully argued during his six-week trial that he killed Cynthia Baumgartner Roth, his wife of less than a year, for $385,000 in insurance money. She died last July 23.

King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Marilyn Brenneman argued that Roth's crime showed detailed planning and extreme cruelty.

Among Sullivan's decisions that Cody will argue in the appeal are:

-- Allowing into evidence testimony regarding the 1981 falling death of Roth's second wife, Janis. Prosecutors used the similarity in the deaths, including the fact both victims were well-insured, to establish a pattern.

Prior acts by a defendant aren't normally allowed into evidence, and Cody contends it mainly served to make the jury biased against Roth.

Skamania County Prosecutor Bob Leick said yesterday he will not charge Roth with murder for the 1981 death because he received an unusually long sentence in King County.

Leick said financially strapped Skamania County could not afford to try Roth when he essentially has received a life sentence already. With good behavior, Roth could be released when he is 70.

-- Refusing to sever counts accusing Roth of defrauding an insurance company and the Social Security Administration from the murder trial. Allowing them to be tried together with the murder charge unfairly allowed prosecutors to portray Roth as a man who routinely committed crimes for money, his attorney contends.

Roth was also convicted on both first-degree theft counts.

-- Allowing testimony from Roth's third wife, Donna Clift, about their marital discord and a raft trip in which she believed he may have intentionally punctured the vessel.

Cody called Clift's damaging and sometimes hostile testimony "a mini-divorce trial."

-- Admitting into evidence a diary note believed to have been written by Cynthia Roth in which she graphically laid out the discord in her marriage.

The note, in which each sentence began, "Randy hates Cindy . . ." was hearsay because it was presented as an "out-of-court declaration of her state of mind at a period of time undefined and unrelated" to her death, Cody contends.

The note was found torn and crumpled in a file drawer of Roth's.

The appeal also contends Sullivan erred when he refused to delay the trial to give Cody, Roth's lead counsel, time to help select a jury. Roth's 50-year sentence also is being appealed.