In a deci­sion reluc­tant­ly allow­ing a fed­er­al cap­i­tal mur­der case against Gary Lee Sampson to pro­ceed, Judge Mark L. Wolf of the Federal District Court in Boston expressed reser­va­tions about the accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty and appeared to crit­i­cize the Justice Department’s zeal­ous approach to seek­ing the cap­i­tal con­vic­tions. He noted:

[I]n the past decade, sub­stan­tial evi­dence has emerged to demon­strate that inno­cent indi­vid­u­als are sen­tenced to death, and undoubt­ed­ly exe­cut­ed, much more often than pre­vi­ous­ly under­stood… [T]he day may come when a court prop­er­ly can and should declare the ulti­mate sanc­tion to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in all cas­es.

Wolf, a for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who was appoint­ed to the fed­er­al bench by President Ronald Reagan, also not­ed that in 16 of the last 17 fed­er­al cap­i­tal cas­es, juries reject­ed the death penal­ty. Wolf ques­tioned the Justice Department’s more aggres­sive seek­ing of the death penalty:

[J]uries have recent­ly been reg­u­lar­ly dis­agree­ing with the attor­ney gen­er­al’s con­tention that the death penal­ty is jus­ti­fied in the most egre­gious fed­er­al cas­es involv­ing mur­der.
…
[I]f juries con­tin­ue to reject the death penal­ty in the most egre­gious fed­er­al cas­es, the courts will have sig­nif­i­cant objec­tive evi­dence that the ulti­mate sanc­tion is not com­pat­i­ble with con­tem­po­rary stan­dards of decen­cy.

(New York Times, August 12, 2003). See Innocence and Federal Death Penalty.

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