In 1935, Daniel Perry Sampson was hanged in Halifax — the last execution in the city under the death penalty — for a crime his family says he didn’t commit.
Now, 90 years later, there is a fresh push for Sampson to be officially exonerated.
Sampson was an African Nova Scotian man who served in the No. 2 Construction Battalion during the First World War. He was convicted after supposedly signing a confession admitting that he killed two young white boys. But lawyer David Steeves said there’s something odd about that signature.
The confession was signed with an X, he said, which is how people who could not write would sign. However, there are documents showing that Sampson could sign using his whole name, and he had learned to read and write while serving in the military.
“He learned how to read and write 14 years before he was arrested,” Steeves told CBC Radio’s Information Morning Nova Scotia.
Steeves says Sampson’s military discharge and marriage documents were signed using his full name.
“The X on that confession looked very troubling.”
He said a forensic document examiner concluded that the same person who wrote the body of the supposed confession is the same person who wrote the X. Steeves’s theory is that it wasn’t Sampson who wrote that confession.
“[Police] wanted, I think, an answer for a horrible crime. But at the time, crime had been racialized and such a horrible crime was often placed on members of the Black community in Halifax,” he said.
Lance Sampson, the great-great-grandson of Daniel Sampson, filed an application for a criminal conviction review on March 7, 2025, the 90th anniversary of Daniel Sampson’s death. The case is now before the federal justice minister and the Criminal Conviction Review Group.
“I am happy to honour my ancestors in this way. And thankful to be represented by David Steeves, who has dedicated 20 years of his life to this case,” said Lance Sampson, known in the music world as Aquakultre, wrote in a Facebook post.
Steeves said racism “absolutely” played a role in how the case was handled nearly a century ago.
Sampson was judged by an all-white jury. Steeves explained that back then, jurors in Halifax came from 10 specific polling districts in the city’s downtown and South End. Among other criteria, they were required to have a certain income.
“I have looked at the tax rolls at the time in Halifax and there were members of the community in the North End, specifically African Nova Scotians, who had sufficient assets who could have sat on a jury at that time,” he said.
“But there were no African Nova Scotians or Black jurors at all.”
He said there are more than 15 pieces of new evidence that point to serious problems with the case against Sampson.
“There are multiple examples of officers lying on the stand. There are documents that were never produced. There are witnesses for the Crown whose evidence shifted multiple times. They were completely unreliable, and yet none of this was ever available to Daniel’s defence lawyer,” he said.
In fact, Steeves isn’t convinced the boys were killed in a violent act. He believes the two children died after being hit by a train while picking berries near the tracks.
“It’s a terrible thing,” he said. “But to then assign guilt to someone who wasn’t even in the area is horrific and terrible and it’s a massive miscarriage of justice.”
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