Fulton Sun

Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green ruled late Friday afternoon he can’t release Ryan Ferguson from prison on Ferguson’s claim the jury selection violated state law because a trial court can’t hear an issue already decided by a higher court.

But Green also said his six-page judgment “is final for purposes of appellate review,” allowing Ferguson’s attorneys to take the case back to a higher court.

Ferguson, now 26, currently is in the Jefferson City Correctional Center, serving a 40-year sentence after a Lincoln County jury convicted him — in a Boone County trial — of helping kill Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt in the early hours of Nov. 1, 2001.