Published November 02, 2016
A drifter who was sentenced to death in the carjack killings of two Massachusetts men will ask a new jury to spare his life at a retrial that's set to get underway in Boston.
Gary Sampson was sentenced to death in 2003, but a judge granted him a new sentencing trial in 2011.
Sampson pleaded guilty to killing 69-year-old Philip McCloskey and 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo during a weeklong crime rampage in 2001. He was convicted separately in New Hampshire in the killing of a former city councilor from Concord.
The new jury will be asked to decide Sampson's punishment: life in prison or the death penalty.
Massachusetts abolished the death penalty in 1984, but Sampson was prosecuted under federal law.
Opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday in federal court.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/testimony-to-begin-in-drifters-death-penalty-retrial