BOSTON — For the second time, a federal jury will be asked to decide if a drifter who carjacked and killed two Massachusetts men should be put to death for the weeklong crime rampage.
Gary Lee Sampson was condemned to die in 2003, but that decision was later overturned.
Prosecutor Zachary Hafer said Wednesday that the deaths of 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo and 69-year-old Philip McCloskey were "cruel" and that Sampson showed no mercy.
During closing arguments Wednesday in the federal death penalty trial of Gary Lee Sampson, attorney Michael Burt said Sampson is not offering excuses. Burt said Sampson is asking only to live a "very narrow and restricted life" in prison with no possibility of release.
Sampson's lawyers are asking the jury to consider 115 mitigating factors they say support a life sentence rather than the death penalty, including brain damage they say he suffered from a troubled childhood.
Sampson pleaded guilty in the 2001 killings. He is charged under federal law, which allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty when a murder is committed during a carjacking.
Sampson's lawyer says Sampson has suffered from brain damage since age 4. Prosecutors portrayed Sampson as a manipulative career criminal.
Sampson received a separate life sentence for killing a third man in New Hampshire.
Associated Press
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