Rodgers seeks to have murder conviction vacated

Inmate in prison for 35 years in Lascoli killing

James Franklin Rodgers, 52, who has been in prison for 35 years for home invasion and robbery and murder of Pasquale "Patsy" Lascoli of Altoona, has filed a petition in the U.S. District Court in Johnstown asking that his first-degree murder conviction be vacated.

Rodgers, represented by the Federal Public Defender's Office of Western Pennsylvania, is challenging the verdict returned by an out-of-county jury after four days of deliberations.

According to the petition filed last week, "No witness placed Mr. Rodgers in or near Mr. Lascoli's home at the time of the homicide. Moreover, with the exception of DNA evidence -- evidence of dubious provenance -- no fingerprints or other physical evidence placed Mr. Rodgers at the crime scene. Nor did Mr. Rodgers confess to the crime."

Rodgers, an inmate in the State Correctional Institution at Somerset, has maintained his innocence.

His appeals have repeatedly been rejected in the state courts, but in 2010, Assistant Federal Public Defender Kirk J. Henderson filed a federal appeal but stayed any further action until Rodgers' state appeals were exhausted.

Rodgers, 17 years old at the time of the Lascoli murder, was initially sentenced to life without parole by visiting Senior Judge Ellis Vanhorn of Bedford County.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory life sentences for juveniles violated the U.S. Constitution, and in 2020, after reviewing Rodgers' case in view of the Miller decision, Senior Judge Daniel Lee Howsare of Bedford County re-sentenced Rodgers to 40 years to life.

Rodgers' defense team argued that he should be paroled.

Howsare's 40-year minimum sentence was upheld by the Pennsylvania Superior Court and rejected for further review by the state Supreme Court.

The defense in its present petition asserts, "Frankie Rodgers has demonstrated resilience, rehabilitation and transformation in overcoming the extreme adversity of his childhood and adolescence and is today a mature and pro-social 52-year-old man."

Under his new sentence, Rodgers will not be eligible for parole for another five years and, as a result, the defense decided to move forward with its petition to vacate the jury's verdicts, which found the defendant guilty of murder, robbery and aggravated assault.

The federal petition contends Rodgers' trial attorney, Randall Miller, was under a great deal of stress during the trial and that the overall defense was deficient in many ways.

It also was critical of the police investigation and the trial judge's decision allowing a statement given by Rodgers during an interview with the lead investigator to be admitted as evidence during the trial.

The defense revealed Rodgers was not told of his right to have an attorney present during the interview and he was not given a Miranda warning before the interview.

The police explained that at the time of the interview, Rodgers was not a suspect in the murder.

In his present petition, the defense lawyers, which also include Federal Public Defender Lisa B. Freeland and Assistant Public Defender Celeste Bacchi, rebuked the Pennsylvania Superior Court for upholding the trial judge's decision allowing the statement into trial.

But the focus of the federal petition for the first time is on the DNA evidence that was used to connect Rodgers to the Lascoli murder.

In 1988, DNA was a developing science and the Rodgers' case was a first in Pennsylvania.

Judge Vanhorn conducted several days of hearings prior to the trial before making a determination that "DNA fingerprinting" was accepted by the scientific community.

The prosecution's theory of the murder was that Rodgers used a knife to force his way into the home, stabbing Lascoli, 72, between 70 and 80 times and that the intruder during the attack cut himself.

Police believed the motive was robbery, noting that the victim's left side front pocket, where he kept his wallet, was turned inside out. There was blood on the pocket.

There also was blood on the walls, the floor and furniture in the Lascoli home.

According to the defense, Rodgers was excluded as a source "for virtually every type of forensic evidence" collected during the investigation.

That included: fingerprints found in the home and on the victim's wallet, which was found days after the murder in Prospect Park; all of the blood samples collected at the scene; bloody shoe prints near the body, in the kitchen and in an upstairs bedroom; and a piece of chewing gum found at the scene.

However, blood on the turned-out pocket was linked to Rodgers.

A sweatshirt, also found in Prospect Park well after the murder, contained a mixture of Lascoli's and Rodgers' blood.

"Mr. Rodgers' case was the first DNA case litigated in Pennsylvania. ... The DNA testing in this case was conducted by a New York-based lab called Lifecodes," the defense petition stated. The defense then devoted several pages in its petition to emphasize that Lifecodes DNA testing process was flawed and it concluded, "Mr. Lascoli's DNA was not analyzed properly."

The defense contended that the alleged deficient DNA testing procedure led to Rogers' conviction.

It speculated, "if the Commonwealth's admittedly circumstantial case had gone to trial without the DNA evidence, this jury, which took four days to reach a verdict, would have returned a not guilty verdict."

Rodgers' defense asked the federal court to grant the defense additional discovery with leave to amend its petition, and to grant an evidentiary hearing.

It also asked the court to "order that Mr. Rogers' convictions be vacated."

During his trial, Rodgers contended he was not present in the Lascoli house the night of the murder.

He said he was "smoking pot" and "drinking" that day and went to a friend's house, where went to sleep.

The defense, in summing up testimony during the trial, indicated that on

June 7, 1988, the day of the murder, Rodgers had no money but the next day he had $40.

And there was testimony that during the early morning of June 8, Rodgers arrived at a friend's apartment with cuts on his fingers.

The initial review of Rodgers' petition will be conducted by federal Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan in Pittsburgh.

Rodgers, according to the petition, experienced a very troubled childhood "witnessing violence and assaults, disruptions, emotional, psychological maltreatment, not as one bad day, but as a long period of very bad days."

He knew Lascoli, who was a friend of his mother.