DOYLESTOWN, PA — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the final appeal of convicted murderer Richard Roland Laird, effectively upholding his death sentence for the 1987 killing of 26-year-old artist Anthony Milano in Bristol Township — a case that marked a landmark moment in U.S. criminal justice history.
In its decision Monday, the nation’s highest court denied Laird’s Petition for a Writ of Certiorari in Richard Roland Laird v. Laurel Harry, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, et al., ending nearly four decades of appeals. The petition sought review of a federal habeas corpus ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which upheld both the conviction and the sentence.
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, representing the respondents, had urged the Supreme Court to reject the petition, arguing that Laird’s conviction and death sentence were constitutionally sound.
Laird, now 62, and his accomplice, Frank Chester, were first convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 for Milano’s brutal murder. Prosecutors said the victim was kidnapped, beaten, slashed, and left for dead in a wooded area near Venice Ashby. His car was later found burned.
The case drew national attention as the first in U.S. history to secure a capital conviction and death sentence for a murder motivated by anti-gay bias.
A federal appeals court later overturned the original convictions, citing procedural errors during trial. Chester subsequently entered a guilty plea to murder in exchange for a life sentence, while Laird was retried in 2007. A Bucks County jury again found him guilty of first-degree murder and imposed the death penalty, reaffirming the original outcome.
Former Bucks County District Attorney Michelle Henry prosecuted the retrial. Since then, the District Attorney’s Appellate Unit has defended the conviction through years of post-conviction and federal appeals.
“The Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari confirms the validity of Richard Roland Laird’s conviction and sentence,” said Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn. “This decision is a crucial step toward bringing closure to the family and loved ones of Anthony Milano, who have waited decades for justice to be finally and irrevocably served.”
Deputy District Attorney John T. Fegley, Chief of Appeals for the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, served as Counsel of Record for the respondents.
With the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case, Laird’s conviction and death sentence now stand as final.
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