BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) -- US Attorney Carmen Ortiz and the assistant US attorneys overseeing the re-sentencing trial of convicted killer Gary Lee Sampson are asking for the judge in that case to recuse himself.
"The government makes this motion after consultation with the Department of Justice, and having obtained authorization from the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division," the government wrote in a motion filed late Thursday.
In 2003, Sampson was convicted and condemned to death for the carjacking murders of three people in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Sampson's death penalty sentence was vacated when it was determined one juror lied during jury selection. The government decided to move forward with plans for a new penalty phase trial with a new jury.
In a pre-trial hearing last month, the government indicated they may ask Judge Mark Wolf to recuse himself.
Last summer, Wolf took part in a Martha's Vineyard panel discussion of the independent film, "The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest."
The issue: The panel also featured Dr. James Gilligan, now set to be one of Sampson's defense witnesses.
Judge Wolf has revealed that before the screening of the film last July, he hosted Dr. Gilligan and Alan Dershowitz at his rented Martha's Vineyard home for non-alcoholic drinks and lobster rolls.
According to the Washington Post, the film is a "powerful indictment of the American justice system."
In a hearing at federal court, prosecutor Zachary Hafer said:
"If this was lobster roll with Dr. Gilligan, it would not be an issue. The issue is, this was on a topic that is germane to issues in this case, at a time when the case was being aggressively litigated."
Judge Wolf said he did not know Dr. Gilligan was a potential defense witness until last September.
But the Government produced four Sampson court filings, all of them dated before September 2014, which contain Dr. Gilligan's name.
At one point, Judge Wolf remarked, "I regret that conduct I don't tentatively regard as disqualifying, is injected into this issue."
Sampson's re-sentencing trial is set to begin in September. If Judge Wolf recuses himself, it could cause a delay.
"The government seeks the Court's recusal reluctantly, with full appreciation that recusal may cause a delay in the proceedings," government lawyers wrote in a court filing Thursday. "The government wants this case to be resolved expeditiously and does not wish to have the penalty-phase trial postponed."
The lawyers said they realized that Judge Wolf has presided over the Gary Lee Sampson case for more than a decade, and "that one of the Court’s colleagues will have to become familiar with the case," so if Wolf recused himself, it "might cause additional delay."