Samuel Randolph Exonerated from Pennsylvania Death Row as Prosecutors Withdraw Charges at Retrial

A Harrisburg, Pennsylvania tri­al court has grant­ed the appli­ca­tion of the Dauphin County District Attorney’s office to with­draw all charges against Samuel Randolph, IV, com­plet­ing his exon­er­a­tion of a dou­ble mur­der that sent him to Pennsylvania​’s death row in 2003. 

On April 6, 2022, two days after the U.S. Supreme Court had declined to review the coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors’ appeal of a fed­er­al court rul­ing grant­i­ng Randolph a new tri­al, District Attorney Fran Chardo filed a motion to enter an order of nolle pros­e­qui ter­mi­nat­ing the pros­e­cu­tion of Mr. Randolph. Chardo refused to con­cede Randolph’s inno­cence, say­ing that ​“retri­al is not in the pub­lic inter­est at this time” because “[t]he police affi­ant and the police detec­tive who han­dled the evi­dence col­lec­tion in this case have both died” and “[o]ther wit­ness­es have become unavail­able for other reasons.”

A fed­er­al dis­trict court over­turned Randolph’s con­vic­tion on May 27, 2020, hold­ing that the tri­al court had vio­lat­ed his Sixth Amendment right to be rep­re­sent­ed by coun­sel of choice by pre­vent­ing coun­sel retained by Randolph’s fam­i­ly from enter­ing his appear­ance in the case and forc­ing him to go to tri­al with an unpre­pared court-appoint­ed lawyer with whom he had an ​“absolute[,] com­plete break­down of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.” A unan­i­mous pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed that rul­ing on July 20, 2021. On April 4, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the pros­e­cu­tors’ peti­tion for review and, two days lat­er, on April 6, 2022, the Dauphin County District Attorney filed an appli­ca­tion to dis­con­tin­ue the prosecution.

In 2021, while the Dauphin County pros­e­cu­tors’ request for review by the U.S. Supreme Court was pend­ing, Chardo offered Randolph an ​“Alford” plea in which he could con­tin­ue to main­tain his inno­cence but admit that pros­e­cu­tors had suf­fi­cient evi­dence to con­vict. Under the deal, Randolph would be released for time served but his con­vic­tions would remain on his record.

“I didn’t do this. Innocent peo­ple don’t plead guilty — as bad as I want to go home,” Randolph told Penn Live. Randolph, the news out­let report­ed, ​“was wor­ried that with two mur­der counts against him, he wouldn’t be able to get a good job, buy a house or any num­ber of oth­er things that peo­ple with felony con­vic­tions are often blocked from doing.” 

“That would both­er me,” Randolph said.

Randolph becomes the 187^th per­son to be exon­er­at­ed from a wrong­ful con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in the United States since 1973. He is the eleventh Pennsylvania death-row exoneree. Five of those exon­er­a­tions have tak­en place since 2019. All five have involved both offi­cial mis­con­duct and per­jury or false accu­sa­tion. Four of the five have also involved inad­e­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion at trial.

The Denial of Counsel of Choice

Randolph was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas on charges that he had mur­dered two men in a shoot­ing in a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania bar in 2001. He was rep­re­sent­ed at tri­al by court-appoint­ed coun­sel, Allen Welch, who was at the same time run­ning for dis­trict attor­ney in neigh­bor­ing Perry County. Welch failed for months to vis­it with Randolph, failed to retain an inves­ti­ga­tor, and filed pre­tri­al motions with­out dis­cussing them with his client. Randolph repeat­ed­ly expressed con­cern to the tri­al court that Welch was not pre­pared for tri­al and did ​“not have [his] best inter­est” in mind, and that they had irrec­on­cil­able dif­fer­ences regard­ing the approach to the case.

By the time of tri­al, Randolph and Welch were not speak­ing, and the court appoint­ed anoth­er lawyer, Anthony Thomas, who had no cap­i­tal case expe­ri­ence, to act as an inter­me­di­ary between the two. Randolph’s fam­i­ly had been attempt­ing for months to sell a bar his moth­er owned so they could retain Samuel Stretton to rep­re­sent him. However, the sale did not go through until a week before the tri­al. Stretton then sought a one-month con­tin­u­ance to enable him to pre­pare for tri­al, but the tri­al judge, Todd Hoover, denied the motion. Stretton then request­ed a con­tin­u­ance of ​“a day or two,” which the court also denied. Three days before jury selec­tion was set to begin, Stretton mod­i­fied his request, ask­ing that jury selec­tion be pushed back three hours, until noon, to accom­mo­date his pre­vi­ous­ly sched­uled appear­ance before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. 

Welch tried to per­suade the tri­al court to grant the con­tin­u­ance, telling Hoover, ​“I have at this point absolute­ly a com­plete break­down of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with my client.” Hoover again refused, say­ing he would not delay the pro­ceed­ings for more than an hour, forc­ing Welch to rep­re­sent Randolph in the tri­al. Completely unpre­pared for tri­al, Welch had not spo­ken to Randolph’s poten­tial ali­bi wit­ness­es and, accord­ing to a sworn affi­davit sub­mit­ted by Thomas, had not even spo­ken with him about the tri­al strat­e­gy because of sched­ule con­flicts relat­ing to his cam­paign for dis­trict attor­ney. Two weeks after the tri­al, Welch lost the pri­ma­ry elec­tion and lat­er com­plained to Thomas that he lost because of ​“this damn trial.”

After he was con­vict­ed, Randolph told the court that he would rep­re­sent him­self in the penal­ty phase. Saying he had been denied coun­sel of choice at tri­al, he refused to present any mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence or argu­ment in his defense and was sen­tenced to death.

In its opin­ion affirm­ing the dis­trict court’s grant of a new tri­al, the Third Circuit wrote that grant­i­ng Stretton a three-hour con­tin­u­ance to accom­mo­date his supreme court appear­ance ​“would not have been unfair to the pros­e­cu­tion, nor would it have strained the state’s inter­est in the ​‘swift and effi­cient admin­is­tra­tion of crim­i­nal jus­tice’ or per­mit­ted Randolph ​‘to unrea­son­ably clog the machin­ery of jus­tice or ham­per and delay the state’s efforts to effec­tive­ly admin­is­ter jus­tice.’” ​“It was just three hours,” the court said.

The Evidence of Innocence

In fed­er­al habeas cor­pus pro­ceed­ings, Randolph alleged that the mur­ders were actu­al­ly com­mit­ted by one local group of drug deal­ers in retal­i­a­tion for a series of assaults and rob­beries com­mit­ted against them by a rival group. Police and pros­e­cu­tors with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that, dur­ing a search of a house owned by one of the drug deal­ers, they had recov­ered ​“an AK-47 rifle, numer­ous bul­lets of var­i­ous cal­ibers (includ­ing the cal­ibers used in these inci­dents), gun hol­sters, $3,800.00 in cash, drugs (cocaine and mar­i­jua­na), and – in the wash­ing machine – a black hood­ed sweat shirt, a pair of black jeans, and a pair of black sweat-pants” that matched the descrip­tion of the cloth­ing worn by the killers dur­ing the shoot­ing. Another wit­ness came for­ward with evi­dence that the sec­ond vic­tim killed in the bar had been shot by acci­dent when one of his asso­ciates, who false­ly impli­cat­ed Randolph as the shoot­er, had returned fire at the gunmen.

The dis­trict court did not address Randolph’s asser­tion of inno­cence, writ­ing “[t]he excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence out­lined in this claim, if admis­si­ble, can be advanced at Randolph’s retrial.”