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Thread: Roland T. Steele - Pennsylvania

  1. #1
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    Roland T. Steele - Pennsylvania





    Summary of Offense:

    In January 1986, Steele was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 88-year-old Lucille Horner, 86-year-old Minnie Warrick, and 85-year-old Sarah Knutz. Steele was formally sentenced to death in Washington County on March 25, 1988, and the state Supreme Court affirmed that judgment in June 1989.

  2. #2
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    December 19, 2008

    Steele death sentence upheld

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence of Roland Steele for the murder of three elderly women in 1985.

    In a 70-page opinion released Thursday, the court denied all issues raised in Steele's post-conviction petition that was filed in March 2003.

    Steele, 62, was convicted Jan. 22, 1986, of three counts of first-degree murder in the karate-style killings of Lucille Horner, 88, Minnie Warrick, 86, and Sarah Knutz, 85. The women's bodies were found June 21, 1985, under a pile of old tires in Cecil Township.

    Most of the arguments raised in Steele's petition hinged on the alleged ineffectiveness of his trial attorney, Paul Tershel, and a defense investigator. Tershel was an assistant public defender at the time of the trial. His co-counsel, then-public defender John Liekar, died in 1999.

    The petition claimed that Tershel failed to present evidence during the penalty phase that the jury could have seen as mitigating and could have prevented the death penalty from being imposed.

    Steele claimed Tershel did not seek school and prison records, order mental health evaluations, talk with his family about his upbringing or learn about several incidents where Steele came to the aid of another.

    Those reports would have shown that Steele was neglected and abused as a child, supported his brothers and sisters by stealing, did poorly in school, had an IQ in the borderline mentally retarded range and had a personality disorder, he claimed.

    Steele also argued the only evidence Tershel presented at the penalty phase was that he had received the Carnegie Hero Award at age 17 for pulling a boy from the path of a train and his mother's testimony that he was nonviolent. He did not, however, present records that would have shown Steele also prevented another inmate's suicide while incarcerated, notified two inmates that he had been solicited to kill them and went to the authorities and broke up an assault on a jail guard.

    Steele also argued that Tershel failed to adequately question prospective jurors about racial bias, as well as dispute the reliability of hair sampling evidence presented by the prosecution.

    The appeal was filed with the Supreme Court not long after former Washington County Judge John F. Bell also ruled that Steele's arguments did not justify a new trial or the overturning of his conviction or sentence.

    Of the seven justices, five filed concurring opinions. Justice Thomas G. Saylor dissented from the majority ruling. Justice Jane Cutler Greenspan did not participate in the consideration or decision of the case.

    "In my view, the majority's reasoning rests on an incomplete assessment of both the record and the prevailing requirements of law," wrote Saylor.

    Steele was scheduled to die on Jan. 11, 2000, for the murders. He was granted a stay of execution by former Gov. Tom Ridge pending the filing of post-conviction appeals.

    http://www.observer-reporter.com/OR/...eele-dismissed

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Resentencing ordered in 1985 slayings

    A McKees Rocks man on death row for the 1985 murders of three elderly women in Washington County won't get a new trial, but will be sentenced again, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.

    A Washington County jury convicted Roland Steele, 65, in 1986 for beating to death and robbing Lucille Horner, 88, Minnie Warrick, 86, and Sarah Kuntz, 85. Steele had a black belt in karate and a pathologist testified that two victims were beaten until their hearts ruptured while the third asphyxiated as a result of a fractured larynx.

    U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab ruled that while some of the evidence used in the trial was questionable, the bulk of the evidence overwhelmingly linked Steele to the murders and robberies. He ruled that Steele must be resentenced because the court used a sentencing form that has since been ruled unconstitutional.

    http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt...#ixzz1e9sCHbGw

  4. #4
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On December 28, 2011, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania filed an appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit over the granting of Steele's habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir...s/ca3/11-9005/

  5. #5
    Wilso
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    Roland T. Steele isn't on the official list of inmates on Pennsylvania's death row.

    https://www.cor.pa.gov/About%20Us/In...20Penalty.aspx

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