LANCASTER, Pa. — A Lancaster County Prison inmate serving up to 76 years for severely injuring a Stevens College of Technology student in a shooting in 2003 will not get a new trial or relief from his sentence after a recent appellate court ruling, the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office said Wednesday.
Kalvin McCullough's appeal of his 38- to 76-year prison sentence for the attempted murder of the victim and three other people was filed too late, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled.
And that fact that McCullough's lifelong friend, Lamar Clark, who is serving up to 87 years in jail for a 2014 murder of a man in a Lancaster City bar, claimed in a confession that he committed the crime for which McCullough was convicted was "incredible," the Superior Court found.
McCullough, now 37, filed the request for relief with a signed affidavit from Clark, who confessed to the shooting McCullough was convicted of.
A Lancaster County judge previously denied the appeal, finding it untimely and that Clark's confession "has no iota of credibility."
The Superior Court concurred with that ruling, the Lancaster County DA's Office said.
Prosecutors say McCullough and Clark mistakenly believed that if the attempted murder charge fell on Clark, the statute of limitations for the crime would have expired by now and neither man could be sentenced for the crime.
According to evidence presented at a previous hearing, the two men came up with the plan through the prison's email system. Working through intermediaries, the two convicts referred to "a crazy loophole" that could result in relief, prosecutors say.
McCullough was convicted of four counts of attempted homicide and related charges after opening fire on a group of people that included 18-year-old Joseph Rodgers, a two-sport athlete from Bensalem.
Rodgers was paralyzed by injuries sustained in the shooting, prosecutors say.
