A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled in a 109-page opinion that William Kelley, defended at different times by famed lawyers William Kunstler and Laurence Tribe, "suffered no denial of his constitutional rights" when he was convicted of the murder of Maxcy, arranged by Maxcy's young wife through her lover.

U.S. District Court Judge Norman Roettger granted Kelley a new trial in 2002, saying that Hardy Pickard, the state prosecutor during the first trial, withheld basic evidence to secure a conviction.

The appeals court disagreed, saying "Kelley received a full and fair trial."

"This office is gratified by the 11th circuit's decision, both because it reinstates the conviction of a guilty man and because it vindicates Hardy Pickard," said Chip Thullbery, a spokesman for prosecutors in the Polk County-based judicial circuit that includes Sebring in Highlands County. "Hardy is an honorable prosecutor who did not deserve to be treated as he was by the district court judge."

"We acknowlege that this is an extraordinary case," the appeals court wrote in its ruling. The state's "key witness was a reprehensible villain who literally got away with murder," and one of Kelley's attorneys was "a disgraced and incompetent scoundrel" who had been disbarred in Massachusetts, the ruling said.

Kelley, of Massachusetts, was convicted in January 1984 of first-degree murder in the Oct. 3, 1966 stabbing and shooting death of Von Maxcy, 41, in his ranch home in south-central Florida, about 140 miles northwest of Miami.

Kelley's first trial ended with a hung jury. He was convicted in a second trial three months later, nearly two decades after the contract slaying. Kunstler, who died in 1995, represented Kelley and used the disbarred attorney as an assistant.

John Sweet, the prosecution's star witness, testified at both trials that Von Maxcy's wife, Sweet's lover, had asked him to arrange the murder because she feared she would be left out of Von Maxcy's $1.7 million estate.

Sweet was originally convicted of the murder in a sensational trial that attracted national news coverage and was sentenced to life. A year later, Irene Von Maxcy admitted that she had lied on the stand about Sweet's involvement in her husband's murder and Sweet was set free.

Defense attorneys argued that Kelley had been falsely accused by Sweet, who named him 15 years after the killing. In return, Sweet received immunity from the Maxcy murder and from loan-sharking, counterfeiting and several other charges in Massachusetts.

Sweet, a real estate broker, testified that he hired Boston bookmaker Walter Bennett, who in turn hired Kelley, of Brockton, Mass., and another Massachusetts man for the killing.

Sweet has since died. Von Maxcy's wife, Irene, served four years in prison for a perjury conviction stemming from her testimony in his trials.

During the first trial, Kunstler enlisted the help of Harvey Brower, who had been disbarred in Massachusetts and was convicted in Louisiana of conspiring to help suspects jump bail.

Brower disappeared before the first trial began, and Kunstler described him as a "thief who 'absconded' with fees without ever performing his investigatory duties," according to the appeals court ruling.

Last year, Roettger agreed with Kelley's new attorneys, Tribe and Jim Lohmann, that Kelley received "egregious, ineffective assistance" from Kunstler, who was "deficient" for hiring Brower. Kunstler's previous clients included Abbie Hoffman, Lenny Bruce, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Jack Ruby, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

"Let's hope that the state will finally come to see the handwriting on the wall and will soon release Kelley," Tribe, a famed Harvard law professor, said at the time.

Tribe did not return a phone message left at his Harvard office after hours Friday.

AP-ES-07-23-04 2111EDT