Five years ago today, Randy Steidl walked out of the Danville Correction Center in Illinois after having spent over seventeen years in prison after having been wrongfully convicted in the 1986 murder of Dyke and Karen Rhoads.

It was a gruesome murder, two people brutally stabbed and the house set on fire in a peaceful community where these sort of outrages are unexpected. Mr. Steidl, together with Herb Whitlock where convicted of the murders on questionable testimony.

As I read about the case, I cannot help but consider the parallels and differences between this case and the Cheshire Home Invasion.

Both cases are likely to be on the minds of many this afternoon as Mr. Steidl, together with Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions, join representatives of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Trial Lawyers for a news conference at 3 PM in Room 1C of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford to call on Governor Rell to sign Raised Bill 6578 which would abolish the death penalty in Connecticut.

(Cross posted at MyLeftNutMeg.)