Final briefs in Ferguson case provide judge with many arguments

Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green got a lot of reading material Friday.

Lawyers involved in the Ryan Ferguson case have given Green 175 pages of legal history and argument to read before he makes his final ruling on Ferguson's request for a new trial - or just to be released from prison.

He currently is serving a total of 40 years at the Jefferson City Correctional Center on his 2005 convictions of second-degree murder and first-degree robbery, for the Nov. 1, 2001, killing of Columbia Daily Tribune Sports Editor Kent Heitholt outside the newspaper's office.

The defense's main case is based on the change-of-testimony by two key witnesses in Ferguson's 2005 trial. But the attorney general's brief tells Green he can ignore the two recantations because they're not credible.