Killer seeking files for appeal petition

A federal appeals court upheld the conviction, and the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.

Now, much to the dismay of the families of Sampson's victims, a federal judge in Boston has ordered a hearing Tuesday on a demand by Sampson's lawyers for prosecution files they say will help them draft a new complaint alleging that the Abington native did not get a fair trial. A high-powered team of lawyers from Washington, D.C., has been appointed to represent the 49-year-old Sampson.

"It just brings back every nightmare," said Mary Rizzo, whose son, 19-year-old Jonathan of Kingston, was carjacked by Sampson on Plymouth's waterfront and then brutally murdered by him.

"It's ridiculous," said Scott McCloskey, whose father, 69-year-old Philip McCloskey of Taunton, was carjacked, led into a wooded area and stabbed 24 times by Sampson. "He's just a coward. He's afraid to die,so he's trying anything he can to get out of it."

Sampson, a drifter who grew up in Abington, confessed that after being picked up by McCloskey and Rizzo on separate days while hitchhiking in July 2001, he forced them at knifepoint to drive to secluded areas, where he tied them up and stabbed them to death.

He also admitted that he drove Rizzo's car to New Hampshire, where he broke into a vacation home on Lake Winnipesaukee and killed Robert "Eli" Whitney, 59, who had come to mow the lawn.

In December 2003, a federal jury in Boston rejected arguments by Sampson that he was mentally ill when he committed the slayings and recommended execution.

US District Court Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf, who presided over the trial, ordered Sampson sentenced to death. Last May, the US Supreme Court refused to take Sampson's case after an appeals court upheld his conviction.

The McCloskeys and the Rizzos say they are frustrated by a veil of secrecy that has surrounded the case.

Many sealed motions and documents have been filed in the past year since the new team of lawyers was appointed to represent Sampson as he prepares a new petition challenging his conviction. In an unusual move, the judge sealed nine of the 21 pages of the defense motion relating to next week's hearing.

Last year, Wolf, citing the right of Sampson to have lawyers who are experienced in death penalty cases, appointed William E. McDaniels and Jennifer G. Wicht, both partners in the Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly, the same firm that successfully defended President Clinton in his impeachment trial and Vice President Dick Cheney during the leak investigation involving former CIA agent Valerie Plame. He also appointed lawyers from the federal defender's office in Boston and from The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem to represent Sampson.

Sampson's lawyers did not return telephone calls from the Globe.

In the motion filed with the court, the defense lawyers urged the judge to order prosecutors to turn over all of their files relating to Sampson and accused them of withholding information involving some trial witnesses, including the state medical examiner and a doctor who testified that Sampson was not mentally ill.

They also contended that Sampson's case was moved from state to federal court because US Attorney General John Ashcroft had a "political agenda" to bring federal death penalty prosecutions in states, such as Massachusetts, that have no state death penalty.

In an opposition motion filed with the court, prosecutors said that Sampson was tried in federal court because of the heinous nature of his crime.

Acting US Attorney Michael K. Loucks released a statement yesterday saying the government faithfully met all of its obligations to turn over evidence.

"We are prepared to respond to each and every motion filed by the defendant until the death sentence imposed upon Gary Lee Sampson is carried out," he said.

Michael Rizzo, Jonathan's father, said, "This looks like a desperate shotgun approach of throwing a number of things against the wall hoping that one of them will stick."

Richard C. Dieter, xecutive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, said that Sampson is one of 57 inmates on federal death row and that it's not unusual for it to take a decade or more for appeals to be exhausted in death penalty cases.