Judge Investigates Claims That 3 Jurors Lied in Death Penalty Case
A federal judge is investigating whether jurors who voted to send a confessed killer to death lied on their jury questionnaires and by doing so tainted the verdict.
The case involving Gary Lee Sampson was the first federal death penalty case in Massachusetts, the Boston Globe reports.
In November, U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf took the unusual step of summoning three jurors to testify behind closed doors about answers on their 2003 jury questionnaire, the Globe reports, citing court documents made public Friday.
One juror is alleged to have failed to disclose that her daughter once worked for law enforcement and later went to prison on a drug charge. Another juror reportedly didn’t disclose he’d been prosecuted on a driving to endanger charge. And yet another reportedly failed to note that her boyfriend was once a university police officer.
Counsel for Sampson, who is alleged to have killed three people during a murderous rampage in 2001, maintain the jury was tainted and he deserves a new trial. But prosecutors contend that even if the claims of jury misconduct are true, the instances don’t amount to evidence of actual bias.
