Ray Larson, who served as a prosecutor for almost four decades and much of it as Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney, died Sunday morning. Current Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn began her time in the prosecutor’s office in 1987, working almost three decades with Larson.
Red Corn said Larson led the charge to make wearing a seatbelt in a vehicle the law. “You could drive anywhere else in the Commonwealth without a seatbelt law, but when you came into Fayette County, you had to buckle up. That was Ray Larson. That was Ray Larson that pushed this community to adopt a seatbelt ordinance,Red Corn explained”
Regarding drunk driving cases, Red Corn said Larson was a leader nationally in making a vehicle crime a homicide. She said the former prosecutor played a key role in establishing the Children’s Advocacy Center and recognizing and assisting victims of crime and their families.
Red Corn said Larson’s message to other prosecutors in the office was to always be fair, to treat everybody the same under the same circumstances. She noted the veteran prosecutor, “preached the message and he followed the message.”
Russ Baldani has practiced criminal defense in Lexington for 37 years. He’s was at the defense attorney table in a courtroom many times when former Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Larson led the prosecution.
Baldani said Larson was always well prepared. The defense attorney believes the prosecutor was effective with juries because he acted like what a jury thought a prosecutor should act like. Baldani says it’s obvious Larson made a big impact on those who worked with him.
“Even though I didn’t agree with him on a lot of criminal law issues. I clashed with him in the courtroom many a time, you had to respect somebody that hires good people and always supports them and has their back,” said Baldani.
Included in Baldani’s trial work is what is regarded as Lexington’s worst mass murder. Lafonda Faye Foster and Tina Marie Hickey Powell were convicted of killing five people in one night in April of 1986. Baldani, just two years out of law school, remembers Larson saying complimentary remarks to his mother about the young defense lawyer during a break in the trial.
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