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St. Paul, Minn.

Supreme Court upholds man's conviction in 1970 cop killing

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Officer James Sackett
St. Paul Police Officer James Sackett was shot to death in 1970 as he responded to a false emergency call.
Photo courtesy of St. Paul Police Department

(AP) - A Chicago man convicted last year of killing a St. Paul police officer in 1970 lost his appeal before the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Ronald Reed is serving a life sentence in the ambush killing of James Sackett. The officer was shot while answering a fake call about a pregnant woman in labor May 22, 1970.

Scene of the shooting
Officer Sackett was responding to a false emergency call at this house, at 859 Hague Ave., when he was killed. The home is one block from where the call was said to have been placed.
MPR Photo/Toni Randolph

Reed and a co-defendant were convicted in separate trials. Key witnesses came forward to give investigators the evidence they needed to bring a case more than three decades after the murder.

Reed was working as a pipefitter in Chicago when he was arrested in 2005.

He had argued to the Supreme Court that his conviction was flawed in several respects, but justices ruled Thursday that there was nothing in his appeal that merited a new trial.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Officer James Sackett
St. Paul Police Officer James Sackett was shot to death in 1970 as he responded to a false emergency call.
Photo courtesy of St. Paul Police Department