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.