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Judge asks whether killer Gary Lee Sampson needs mental evaluation

A federal judge is asking lawyers in the case of convicted serial killer Gary Lee Sampson whether Sampson’s mental status should be examined if prosecutors go to court again to seek the death penalty. US District Judge Mark Wolf asked the US attorney’s office and defense lawyers to confer and report to him. Sampson admitted to killing three people in a weeklong span in 2001. After he was convicted in 2003, a jury, in the penalty phase of his trial, sentenced him to death. But Wolf in 2011 vacated the sentence and ordered a new penalty phase of the trial after finding that one of the jurors withheld information about previous contacts with law enforcement.