William Sandeson appealing murder conviction, sentence in killing of Taylor Samson

William Sandeson is appealing his conviction and sentence for second-degree murder in the killing of Taylor Samson in August 2015.

A jury convicted Sandeson in February after a six-week trial. Last month, a judge ruled Sandeson must serve a minimum of 7.5 more years in prison before he can apply for parole.

On Monday, Sandeson filed a handwritten notice of appeal from the jail where he is being held. In it, he cites two grounds of appeal. He said the trial judge, Justice James Chipman of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, failed to remedy an abuse of process.

Sandeson also claims Chipman erred when he failed to find that Sandeson's Charter rights had been violated. Sandeson left the door open for adding additional grounds of appeal before the matter is heard.

At his trial, the jury heard that Sandeson shot and killed Samson after luring him to his apartment in the south end of Halifax for a drug deal. Sandeson had agreed to buy nine kilograms of marijuana for $40,000.

But Sandeson didn't have the money and instead shot Samson dead moments after the two entered the apartment. He then disposed of the body, which has never been found.

Sandeson was initially convicted of first-degree murder following a jury trial in 2017. But that conviction was overturned on appeal, leading to the retrial this year.

There are no details on exactly what Sandeson is claiming in his latest appeal because no briefs have been filed with it. However, in his earlier appeal he complained that police were wrong to extract information from his cellphone and also wrong in their first search of his apartment.

Sandeson voluntarily shared text messages with police from his phone. They showed he and Samson discussing the drug deal, which first tipped off police to the idea that Samson's disappearance was serious.

They did a cursory search of Sandeson's apartment under the premise that Samson was possibly being held hostage there. It's what police described as an exigent circumstances search, but Sandeson disputed that it was justified.

If his latest appeal is successful, Sandeson is asking for a stay of proceedings. Failing that, he's asking that evidence obtained in violation of his Section 8 Charter rights on unreasonable search or seizure be excluded from the trial.