Kenny Richey has served 19 years on death row in the US

The Appeal Court in the US state of Ohio has ruled that he should be retried within 90 days or set free.

Richey, 40, originally from Scotland, was convicted of killing a two-year-old girl in an arson attack in 1986, but has always protested his innocence.

His lawyer, Ken Parsigian, said he thought a retrial was very unlikely.

Prosecutors in Ohio had wanted Richey's appeal to be reheard but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati refused.

They could now seek intervention by the US Supreme Court.

It would be pure spite in my mind for them to retry at this point, but if they do, we'll be ready and Kenny will have a real lawyer and this time we'll win Ken Parsigian Kenny Richey's lawyer

Mr Parsigian told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: "The government has two options. Starting Friday, which is when this order becomes final, they have 90 days to either retry Kenny or release Kenny.

"So they still have the option of a new trial but I'm quite confident that they won't want to seek a new trial."

Mr Parsigian said a retrial would present problems for the prosecution, because of the death and unavailability of witnesses to support their case.

He said: "We've completely destroyed all of their scientific evidence so that wouldn't be effective in the case any more and because of this ruling they will not be able to retry him on the death penalty count.

'Pure spite'

"So, even if they could try him again and even if they could win they could never get the death penalty again, given that Kenny's already served 19 years, there's really no logical or sane reason for them to choose to retry a case that frankly they no longer have any chance of winning.

"It would be pure spite in my mind for them to retry at this point, but if they do, we'll be ready and Kenny will have a real lawyer and this time we'll win."

Supporters of Richey welcomed the decision of the court on Monday.

Edinburgh-born Richey has always denied starting a fire on 29 June, 1986, which resulted in the death of toddler Cynthia Collins.

It was alleged that Richey was drunk and had attempted to set fire to his former girlfriend's apartment but the fire resulted in the death of the child, who was in the apartment above.