The Superior Court of Pennsylvania upheld the dismissal of a West Lampeter Township convicted murderer’s petition to be released from his life sentence to receive medical care.

In an April 20 non-precedential decision the Superior Court wrote that Lancaster County Judge Jeffery D. Wright “did not err or abuse [his] discretion” in denying Randall Scott Shreiner’s petition to be released into his wife’s care without a hearing.

Shreiner had previously petitioned Wright to release him into the care of his wife, claiming that state prison could not provide him with the medical care that he needs to treat stage-five chronic kidney disease and that he had less than six months to live. Wright denied Shreiner’s petition in September without a hearing on the matter, stating that Shreiner’s claim “defies logic” because lifesaving kidney dialysis treatment was already available to him in state prison. 

Though Shreiner argued that he would have presented evidence in such a hearing that would have proven his medical condition could not be treated in prison, First Assistant District Attorney Travis Anderson argued that Shreiner’s petition “plainly failed” to establish a case.

Wright, Anderson wrote in his brief, was therefore justified in denying Shreiner a hearing – a conclusion which the Superior Court agreed with. 

The Superior Court also agreed with Wright’s conclusion that releasing Shreiner, who is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole followed by two to seven years of incarceration for shooting 44-year-old Monica Miller to death, “magnified his risk of escape and posed a danger to the community.” Shreiner, formerly of the 1800 block of Conestoga Avenue, had pleaded guilty in 2015 to criminal homicide and a felony firearms offense for the killing.

While state law does give the sentencing court the discretion to “temporarily defer service of the sentence of confinement and temporarily remove the inmate … for placement in a hospital, long-term care nursing facility or hospice care location,” Anderson argued that Shreiner’s own medical documents show that his medical condition is treatable and not terminal.

Rather, Anderson said, Shreiner has manufactured his dire condition by refusing kidney dialysis treatment which his own medical documents state is “necessary for his survival.”

“Dialysis in a prison setting may well be an unpleasant, uncomfortable and time-consuming process, and Mr. Shreiner may have personal reasons for choosing not to undergo this treatment,” Anderson wrote. “But Judge Wright did not abuse his discretion in finding that a self-created danger to one’s own health is not the type of terminal illness” that would justify Shreiner’s release. 

Shreiner ambushed and shot Miller four times outside her Ephrata apartment building during the early morning hours of Feb. 18, 2015. Shreiner had laid in wait for Miller, confronted her and then shot her at close range with a pistol he had purchased the day before.

Miller died at the scene before first responders could arrive.

When police arrested Shreiner the following day he admitted to ambushing and shooting Miller as she tried to flee from him. Shreiner also admitted he did not have a license to carry the weapon. 

Ephrata Police Det. Graeme Quinn filed the charges.