R.I. judge reverses $160,000 award in wrongful conviction case

Boston Globe

05-04-2025

Sampson spent three years and 75 days at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, R.I., after he was wrongfully arrested in 2003 on one count of attempted larceny over $500 and after other, subsequent run-ins with law enforcement, according to the filings.
In June 2024, Sampson filed a petition for compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment, as allowed under
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Gibney initially granted the petition on Dec. 6, 2024. But she wrote this week that emails between Sampson's attorney and counsel for the state had created some miscommunication that impacted how the government responded to the case.
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'It is clear to the Court that the State failed to respond because it was awaiting an order granting the Motion to Amend, and Petitioner's assurances that it would not hold it in default further led to the illusion that it had such time,' Gibney wrote in her decision on Tuesday. 'It is also clear from those e-mails that the State was intending to challenge the Petition on the merits.'
Therefore, Gibney granted the state's request to vacate the previous decision and provided the government 10 days to file a response to an amended petition.
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Reached for comment by email on Friday, Shannah Kurland, an attorney representing Sampson, pointed to a brief she filed in response to the state's motion to reconsider the initial decision in January.
In the filing, Kurland argued the state 'set forth no facts or legal argument that even plausibly approach the demanding standard for a motion to reconsider.'
'Rather, the State asks the Court to simply change its mind to accommodate the State's own failure, after five months and multiple extensions of time, to properly litigate Mr. Sampson's claim,' Kurland wrote.
The state 'repeatedly laments that it was somehow prevented from answering or otherwise responding to Mr. Sampson's petition because of some amorphous 'confusion' clouding the proceedings,' Kurland added.
'There is no justification for the State's professed confusion over a common procedural event subject to a clear and easy-to-interpret chronology.'
A spokesperson for the Rhode Island Attorney General's Office on Friday said the office 'does not have a comment beyond our court filings.'
The decision to vacate is the latest development in Sampson's years-long back and forth with the judicial system.
Sampson was arrested on June 28, 2003.
According to court filings, he was disposing of wooden shingles from his vehicle in the woods in South Kingstown, R.I., that day.
Around noon, Jessica Sparfven drove to a bike path near the woods and as she returned to her car later, she saw someone – from 20 feet away – reaching into the passenger-side window of her vehicle, Gibney wrote in her December decision.
Sparfven yelled at the man, and he ran away. She found 'the face plate of her radio, her purse, her cell phone, and several CDs on the ground outside her car' and a screwdriver was also found on the ground nearby, Gibney wrote.
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Sparfven described the man to police as a 'Black male, average height (5′10″), thin, wearing white tank top (no sleeves), red shorts and white sneakers or white shoes,' Gibney wrote.
When Sampson heard sirens, he was frightened and went deeper into the woods, as his license was suspended, according to the filing. Only two days prior, he was warned by a judge that if he drove during the suspension, he'd have to serve a year in prison.
An officer noticed the engine of Sampson's vehicle still running, and Sampson was later found wearing 'no shirt, dark red jean shorts, and black boots,' Gibney wrote, adding that 'multiple people in the area could have matched the description of the person Sparfven described,' yet Sampson was arrested.
'Although [Sparfven] never saw the face of the man breaking into her car, she was asked to go to the police station to see if she could identify [Sampson's] shorts as matching those worn by the man breaking into her car,' Gibney wrote. 'She failed to positively identify those shorts because she could not describe the shorts worn by the perpetrator. Despite that, [Sampson] was charged' with attempted larceny and a misdemeanor count of manipulation of a vehicle.
Sampson was released the following day, but was later arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance on Sept. 1, 2003, presented as a bail violator, and held at the ACI. He pled guilty to the charge on Oct. 31, 2003, and was sentenced to 34 months, with 60 days to serve retroactive to Sept. 1.
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On the night he was released, he accepted a ride from an acquaintance in a vehicle that Sampson did not know was stolen until the pair was stopped by police, according to Gibney. Sampson was arrested and brought back to the ACI for another month until prosecutors determined Sampson was not involved in the theft of the vehicle.
Although he was not charged, Sampson was declared a bail violator on Dec. 18, 2003, and he was re-incarcerated.
In February 2004, Sampson was convicted at trial on the larceny and misdemeanor charges from the alleged car break-in, even after evidence was presented showing Sparfven did not see the face of the would-be thief and failed to identify Sampson as the suspect, Gibney wrote. A police officer also testified he was unable to lift any fingerprints from the screwdriver found at the scene.
Sampson was sentenced to prison for 10 years with four years to serve and the remaining six suspended for the attempted larceny charge, and a one-year suspended sentence on the misdemeanor charge. A motion for a new trial was denied.
Sampson was eventually released on parole on April 26, 2006, but was later arrested again on Sept. 20, 2006, and charged with possession of a controlled substance 'despite attempting to live a life of sobriety' and returned to the ACI, Gibney wrote. He pleaded nolo contendere to the charge the following month, and received a three-year-suspended sentence, but he was declared a parole violator and thus remained incarcerated until June 14, 2007.
Meanwhile, Sampson had been working to appeal his 2004 conviction since soon after his trial, arguing Sparfven failed to identify him as the suspect and that the state failed to present evidence the items the would-be thief tried to steal were worth more than $500.
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The state eventually conceded his motion for a new trial should have been granted because of the lack of evidence, and officials moved to vacate his conviction for attempted larceny, Gibney wrote. Sampson dropped his appeal on the misdemeanor charge and on Oct. 13, 2010, the Rhode Island Supreme Court accepted the state's concession of error and vacated the conviction.
Christopher Gavin can be reached at