Judge rules in favor of Ricky Ray Malone competency reevaluation

A Comanche County judge has ruled that Ricky Ray Malone will be reevaluated for competency after the State Attorney General requested it in the interest of justice after he was condemned to death 20 years ago for the murder of an Oklahoma State Trooper.

On Thursday, Comanche County District Judge Scott D. Meaders granted the State’s motion for Malone, 50, to be reevaluated before 9 a.m. March 5.

In his conclusions, Meaders recognized the Comanche County District Court is the proper venue to determine the matter; Malone’s lawyer, Robert Jackson, of Oklahoma City, had argued that Pittsburg County was the proper venue despite him being found incompetent to be executed by the District Court of Pittsburg County on Oct. 26, 2017.

Malone was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was put under psychotropic treatment because his mental health had decompensated to the extent he’d become unable to care for himself. Hehad been housed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester at that time. He has since been housed in Vinita at GRAND Mental Health Facility.

Meaders also ruled in favor that if a person has regained competency it would be discovered through further reevaluations and that there is no limit to the term qualified forensic examiners to conduct the reevaluations in state statutes.

A Comanche County jury convicted Malone on June 16, 2005, for a count of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death.

Malone exhausted his appeals in 2019.

Trooper Green was killed with his own handgun during a struggle with Malone early Dec. 26, 2003, on a dirt road in Cotton County. Malone had been cooking methamphetamine outside his sister’s car, according to testimony at a 2005 trial. He had fallen asleep in the front seat.

The reevaluation decision follows a motion filed Dec. 9, 2024, by State Attorney General Genthner Drummond for Malone’s competency to be reevaluated. In a statement, he said it’s time “for justice to be served” for Green’s family.