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Accident attorney on tuesday and on friday a criminal defense attorney. he was ineptly unqualified. he ignored the case. >> as close to zero as there is. that was the amount of work that went into the fact investigation for randy steidl's case. >> i would challenge him when the witnesses were taking the stand against me that, you need to talk to so-and-so to impeach them. that's a lie. and he patted me on the back and said, don't you know what my job is? and i said, yeah, prove my innocence. no. no. my job is to create a reasonable doubt. once he said that, before i was convicted, i realized, ...

Rhoads. while preparing randy's appeals, the defense hired investigator bill clutter to help with the case. >> you know, first time i met randy, he was going into what they call the condemned unit and having a prisoner who's shackled and brought in front of you. i mean, the reality of that really hits you. >> you know, i was pretty distraught, angry with the system. my hopes were shed. >> attorney mike metnick, a death penay speciast, handled randy's appeals. >> randy was assigned an execution date, but it's an incredibly long process to get from point a to point b. >> mike metnick and bill cl...

Believe in me. >> in the year 2000, the illinois state police who investigated the rhoads murders promoted veteran officer michael callahan to commander of investigations. it was his dream job. >> police officers, their integrity, what they did was just never questioned. whatever they said or they did, you believed it as the truth. >> i think that mike, as a person, his set of morals and standards are so high. his sense of right and wrong has never faltered. >> callahan's first assignment was to review the rhoads murder case. >> i got a call from the patrol lieutenant, and he advised me that i...

>> by 2001, the illinois courts had repeatedly declined to give randy a new trial. randy's last chance at freedom would now come at the federal level. >> it is the court of last resort. after 15 years of state court findings, most federal judges assume that those state court findings are correct. >> judge mike mccuskey would oversee the case, a veteran of the bench, mccuskey had never granted a petition for a new trial. >> you would think year after year, is somebody going to come with a case that you can look at and say this case was decided wrongly? you always wonder, if 100% of all your c...

That's what alerted me to the fact that he would do anything he could, you know, to frame me for the rhoads' murder. >> for callahan, this upped the stakes. >> my question was, would a state's attorney try to railroad and frame two men that were willing to go to the fbi and maybe have him arrested for his own illegal doings? >> callahan also learned disturbing information about one of the lead detectives in the case, jim parrish, who had secured debbie reinboldt's testimony. >> there was instances where both herrington and reinboldt will talk about how police induced them with alcohol. never i...