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The
justices agreed to consider whether Adam Samia's constitutional
right to confront the witnesses against him at trial was
violated when prosecutors introduced part of a co-defendant's
post-arrest statement admitting to the 2012 murder.
Samia, 48, was convicted in 2018 alongside former U.S. Army
sergeant Joseph Hunter and another North Carolina man, Carl
David Stillwell, on charges related to the murder of Filipino
real estate agent, Catherine Lee,
Prosecutors said Samia killed her while working as a mercenary
for Paul Le Roux, a Zimbabwe-born transnational crime leader who
was sentenced in 2020 to 25 years in prison after cooperating
with authorities investigating his organization.
Prosecutors said his organization committed money laundering,
drug and weapons trafficking and murder in multiple countries.
Prosecutors said Joseph Hunter, a former U.S. Army sergeant who
led Le Roux's teams of mercenaries, recruited Samia and Carl
David Stillwell for a "kill team," and in exchange for money the
two murdered Lee, who Le Roux believed had stolen from him.
In 2018 all three men were convicted at trial and are serving
life sentences.
At trial, prosecutors introduced a post-arrest confession by
Stillwell in which he named Samia as the person who pulled the
trigger.
Stillwell did not testify at trial, so Samia's lawyers could not
question him. To protect his rights under the U.S.
Constitution's Sixth Amendment to confront witnesses against
him, his name was redacted.
But Samia's lawyers say the confession remained incriminating
and that the federal appeals courts are divided on how to assess
whether how such redacted confessions should be used at trial.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Howard Goller)
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