Randy Steidl - A Long Fight Against
Injustice and Death Penalty
-- By Suraj Chaudary
Randy Steidl was wrongfully convicted of
the murder of two people in Paris, Ill.,
and sentenced to death in 1987; he spent
more than 17 years in prison before being
exonerated in 2004. It is difficult to understand
the injustice experienced by a person when
we read "wrongfully convicted" in
a death penalty case. We may get the idea
the exoneree was a victim of mistakes, expected
in any man-made system, unless we look at
the kinds of mistakes made in a particular
case and the kinds of attempts made at correcting
the situation once mistakes were discovered.
In these details we can more fully understand
injustice. 
Steidl, with co-defendant Herbert
Whitlock, was convicted of murdering Dyke
and Karen Rhoads based on two eyewitness
accounts, that of Deborah Reinholt and Darrell
Herrington. According to the Supreme Court
of Illinois description of the case in 1997,
Reinholt testified that she was a drug addict
and an alcoholic, and had smoked marijuana
just before encountering Steidl the night
the crime took place. She admitted to confusion
about the scene where she allegedly saw Steidl
murder the victims. Herrington testified
he, too, was an alcoholic and on the day
of the murders drank continuously from noon
to midnight, shortly before the murders took
place. Each version contradicted the other.
In 1988 Herrington recanted his testimony
before a court reporter. Reinholt recanted
hers in a signed affidavit in 1989. Both
reverted to their original statements in
a hearing before a judge later in 1989. In
1990, Steidl was denied post-judgment relief
which would have allowed a retrial based
on recantation of recantations. These two
were trusted regardless of being drunk and
drugged; they were trusted even after recanting
their testimonies.
According to the Illinois
Supreme Court report from 1997, additional
investigation of the crime scene, carried
out after Steidl's death sentence, found
many areas in which Steidl's lawyer, S. John
Muller, failed to provide adequate assistance
during the trial and sentence hearing. For
example, Muller never met Steidl's alibi
witness or called him to testify; he never
subpoenaed any of the three people who made
statements or signed affidavits that disputed
the testimony given by Reinholt, the first
eyewitness to the murder; he did not pay
attention to crime scene evidence that contradicted
Reinholt's and Herrington's testimony; and
he never tried to dispute Reinholt's testimony
though she made three inconsistent statements
to police before the trial.
After presenting
problems regarding his lawyer's competence,
Steidl's petition for a retrial was rejected
in 1995. Paul Komada, the judge who denied
the petition for retrial or a hearing in
which new evidence could be presented, was
an acquaintance of Muller. In denying the
petition, he wrote the lawyer had been competent
in the past, disregarding evidence showing
Muller was incompetent. The Illinois Supreme
Court noted this aspect of Komada's decision
two years later in 1997; in relying on personal
knowledge about Muller, Komada "considered
information outside the record, which is
prejudicial error." Komada was removed
from the case but Steidl's imprisonment continued.
Although problems related to Steidl's trial
were noted by the Illinois Supreme Court
in 1997, including that Reinholt had again
recanted her testimony and recanted this
recantation for a second time in 1996, he
would not be released from prison for many
years. A circuit judge wouldn't allow a retrial
even after compelling evidence was presented
in an evidentiary hearing in 1998. However,
in 1999, his sentence was reduced to life
imprisonment without parole, which was a
far harsher punishment than the death penalty,
according to Steidl. Petitions for a retrial
were repeatedly rejected in 2000 and 2001.
After16 years in prison, Steidl was granted
a trial in 2003 and was released in 2004
after the state dropped all charges. What
happened to Randy Steidl was more than a
series of mistakes. Had he not persevered,
he would have been murdered by the state
for having done nothing. In allowing the
death penalty, a state also allows for a
possible mistake which cannot be redressed;
as he said in testimony before the Colorado
legislature last year, "An innocent
man … cannot be released from the
grave."
Suraj Chaudary is a 2010 CSU graduate
majoring in English and Philosophy.
See also Suraj Chaudary's interview
with Randy Steidl.
