16 August 2018 :

Former death-row prisoner Ronald Champney, who won a new trial in 2013, entered a no-contest plea to lesser charges and was resentenced to serve a term of 10-20 years. Champney pled no contest to third-degree murder and possessing instruments of crime. In exchange, the prosecution dropped charges of first-degree murder and other related offenses. Champney, 67, White, was sentenced to death in Schuylkill County on November 17, 1999 for the June 4, 1992 contract killing of Roy Bensinger, and has already served nearly 20 years in prison, most in death-row solitary confinement. The victim's wife, Beth Ellen Shirey, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in the case. His death sentence was overturned on June 4, 2008 by Schuylkill County Judge William E. Baldwin (the same judge who presided over the 1999 trial), who ruled his former lawyer had not effectively represented him. The state Supreme Court upheld the decision in 2013.