suit against the state of illinois for wrongful imprisonment. while he was in the courthouse, he and mike metnick paid a visit to the courtroom of judge mccusky. he saw us in the gallery. i look at him, i mouthed these words, is that randy steidl? and he nods his head yes. i recessed the court. as i m say thing right now, i m getting goose bumps. the judge signaled us to come back in chambers. there was a split second where you just hug. i didn t cry. i came close. i m starting to get emotional. i knew how difficult it was to get to that point, to have a judge overturn 15 years of state court findings. it s almost unheard of. i was trying to think of something to say to the man.
in 1999, after years of appeals in the illinois courts, metnick finally had a breakthrough in randy s case. while the judge did not give randy a new trial, he agreed that randy s attorneys had been ineffective during sentencing, and changed randy s sentence from death to life in prison. luckily, i got life without parole. many attorneys have told me it s far easier to get a new trial when you re doing life than it is on death row and have lost all of your appeals. michael callahan had looked into randy s case and found serious misconduct within the illinois state police. but before defying his boss by releasing the results of his investigation, callahan needed to tell his wife, lily. when he got this case, he started coming home and doing unusual things, waking up in the middle of the night.
in 1987, randy steidl was sent to death row for the murdering of dyke and karen rhoads. the investigator hired bill clutter to help with the case. the first time i met him, he was shackled. i mean, the reality of that hits you. i was pretty distraught, angry at the system. my hopes were dashed. attorney mike metnick handled the appeals. randy was assigned an execution date, but it s an incredibly long process to get from point a to point b.