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A Washington County man who was convicted of killing an elderly Upper St. Clair woman in 2003 and given the death penalty will get a new sentencing hearing.
Patrick Stollar, 42, appeared on a video screen from prison during a brief hearing on Thursday before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman.
His attorney, Thomas N. Farrell, argued that Cashman failed to give the jury in Stollar’s 2008 trial the proper instruction regarding his lack of any previous criminal convictions before it began deliberating his sentence. He was sentenced to die by lethal injection. Acknowledging the error, the prosecution conceded to the new penalty hearing.