A federal appeals court has, in effect, ordered Richard...

A federal appeals court has, in effect, ordered Richard Clay, an accused hit man, back to Missouri's death row for the May 1994 murder of businessman Randy Martindale. The three-judge panel reversed today a decision by U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple of Kansas City. 3 years ago, Whipple had ordered a new trial for Clay based on what he ruled was new evidence. At the heart of Whipple's ruling and the appellate court reversal was the testimony of the state's key witness against Clay in Clay's 1st-degree murder trial. St. Louis lawyer Jennifer Brewer, two private investigators and students from Webster University helping the defense had been told by Charles Sanders that he had misled the jury about the sentence he was to get for his testimony and that prosecutors Kenny Hulshof, now a Repubican congressman, and H. Riley Bock, New Madrid prosecuting attorney, knew about it. The appellate court said the impeachment value of the information "was relatively insignificant'' because Sanders had been questioned at length about various deals with prosecutors by Clay's lawyer during the trial.