A federal judge made an extraordinary request Wednesday for US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and the top Massachusetts public defender, Miriam Conrad, to attend a hastily scheduled hearing to determine whether a lawyer representing serial killer Gary Lee Sampson should face sanctions.
US Senior District Judge Mark L. Wolf said in a two-page order that Conrad and Ortiz, “unless a request to be excused is allowed, . . . shall attend the hearing.” It is scheduled for Tuesday.
Ortiz is chief prosecutor and makes decisions about charges, but her courtroom appearances are mostly symbolic. Conrad handles cases, but also oversees the public defender program, which is representing Sampson. They are rarely summoned to court.
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Wolf ordered Sampson defense lawyer Danalyn Recer to explain why she should not face sanctions for violating a previous court order in the high-profile case, which involves the possibility of the death penalty.
Prosecutors called for sanctions, specifically for Recer to be fined, after she contacted Sampson’s Bureau of Prisons medical examiner and advised him on how to conduct a mental health evaluation, in violation of Wolf’s order. Wolf said a possible punishment includes her removal from the case.
“The government had no idea that Sampson’s learned counsel had been engaged in extensive ex-parte communication with the examiner regarding the scope and content of the examination of Sampson,” prosecutors said. “The government can only imagine how Sampson (and this court) would have reacted had the government . . . decided which competency tests the examiner was allowed to perform.”
While Sampson has several court-appointed lawyers, Recer is the death penalty specialist assigned to the case. She must respond to the government’s allegations by Thursday.
The calls for sanctions are the latest dramatic turn in a case that has been going on for more than a decade.
The 54-year-old Sampson pleaded guilty in 2003 to the carjacking murders of Philip McCloskey and Jonathan Rizzo in 2001. He also admitted killing Robert “Eli” Whitney in New Hampshire. He was sentenced to death in 2004.
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Sampson appealed, and Wolf overturned the sentence in 2011 after finding that a juror who voted on punishment had lied about her experiences with law enforcement. The judge said he would have excluded the juror if he had known more of her past. Sampson was granted a new sentencing trial, set for February.
Since then, defense lawyers and prosecutors have wrangled over the legal process, with the number of court filings far outpacing those in other cases in federal court in Boston, including the trial of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
On June 30, the judge barred defense lawyers and prosecutors from having any contact with a Bureau of Prisons medical examiner who was conducting a mental health evaluation of Sampson to determine whether he is fit to stand trial. The judge has raised concerns that Sampson suffers from a mental health disorder, and the order was meant to prevent both sides from influencing the evaluation.
Recer disclosed she communicated with the examiner and raised concerns his evaluation went beyond the narrow focus Wolf requested. Wolf said he could consider sanctions, such as revoking Recer’s right to practice in Massachusetts and removing her from the case.
Milton J. Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@
globe.com.