charged in a federal court in Boston, found guilty and, on December 23, 2003, sentenced to death. The jury deliberated for ten hours after hearing six weeks of evidence. Sampson had pleaded guilty, so the jury did not need to decide whether he killed McCloskey and Rizzo, but the jury heard the murders described in graphic detail during the sentencing phase of the trial. Prosecutors portrayed Sampson as a ruthless, calculating killer who preyed on good samaritans. Massachusetts does not have the death penalty, after having abolished capital punishment in 1984. The last time the Commonwealth used the penalty was in 1947. It was the first time anyone in Massachusetts has been sentenced to die under the federal death penalty law. Federal law was changed in 1994 to allow the U.S. Department of Justice to seek the death penalty when a murder is committed during a carjacking or kidnapping. Place of planned execution Although the United States has a federal "death row" at the United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, in Indiana (where federal death row inmates are executed), U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf of the U.S. District Court in Boston ordered that Sampson be executed in New Hampshire. However, before the execution could take place, Judge Wolf ordered a new sentencing trial for Sampson. Appeal process After Sampson was sentenced to death, his lawyer David Ruhnke said he would appeal. In 2011, the death penalty decision was vacated by the US district judge after finding that one of the jurors lied during the screening process; a federal appeals court upheld the decision. Therefore, there was to be another sentencing trial. Second sentencing trial A sentencing retrial was first scheduled for February 2015, but was postponed to September 16, 2015. Judge Wolf said that one reason for the delay until September was because Sampson had been transferred to United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners to undergo a mental health evaluation which had an effect of "obstructing his lawyers' efforts to meet with him." A week before the September sentencing retrial was to begin, it was "stalled while prosecutors decide whether to appeal a federal judge's refusal to step down from the case." Prosecutors were given until October 13 to decide if they would appeal the judge's decision. On October 28, in an 89-page ruling, Judge Wolf rejected numerous defense motions, ruling that jurors will be able to consider the