High court weighs 3 death sentences in Kansas cases

The gruesome nature of the “Wichita Massacre” was not lost on the justices. “Then on the other side of that, if the Supreme Court says we don’t see a problem, it will be left in the same position it was, which was to either re-try the case or not employ the death penalty”.

Two Kansas brothers are waiting to hear from the US Supreme court who will decide if those tried at the same time for murder can be sentenced to death. The Kansas court found that the brothers needed separate penalty proceedings because the evidence supporting one brother’s sentence could be seen as antagonistic to the other.

The justices through their questions seemed inclined to disagree with the Kansas court that the sentencing was tainted.

Washington (CNN)The Supreme Court heard arguments concerning the death penalty on Wednesday, for the first time since the issue bitterly divided the justices last term.

[Supreme Court upholds lethal injection procedure]. The trial judge made no such statement in this case.

Kansas appealed the overturning of all three men’s capital sentences, so the state wants them executed.

Along with the Carr brothers’ sentences the justices will be considering the death sentence of Sidney Gleason.

That popularity for capital punishment “might suggest that a retention election that goes before such people would not come out favorably for those justices who create Kansas law that would reverse these convictions”, Scalia said, adding “I am just speculating, of course”.

Four SCOTUS justices had to vote to take up the Carr case, suggesting at least half the court had an interest in deciding yet another death penalty case this session. “They demanded at gunpoint that each of the three men have sexual intercourse with both women”. They were also convicted of breaking into a home, first forcing the victims to have sex with each other and ordering them to withdraw money from ATMs. They took all five to a soccer field, shot them execution-style and drove over them with a truck.

Four of them – 29-year-old Aaron Sander, 27-year-old Brad Heyka, 26-year-old Jason Befort and 25-year-old Heather Muller – died. Befort’s fiancee, a woman identified in court papers as Holly G., miraculously survived when the bullet glanced off a plastic hairclip, fracturing her skull but not entering her brain.

Jonathan and Reginald Carr received the death penalty during their 2002 trial in Sedgwick County.

Those do not have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The Kansas Supreme Court however, reversed the death sentences.

“The juries were not given an instruction that the Kansas Supreme Court had previously said in Kleypas was required under Kansas law”, said Sarah Johnson, Jonathan Carr’s attorney.

“These cases are far from over”, said Bennett.

“These sentences do not offend the Eighth Amendment”, Schmidt told the justices.

Unlike oral arguments at the Kansas Supreme Court, those held before the U.S. Supreme Court are not broadcast live. “It said… we have to apply the Federal Constitution” instead.

Brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr’s chances of prevailing on the second question before the Court – whether their constitutional rights to have the jury make individualized decisions about their sentences was violated when they were sentenced after a joint hearing – also seemed fairly bleak. Lawyers for the younger brother, Jonathan, 20 at the time of the murders, attempted to show that Reginald, three years older, was a “corrupting influence”.

Justice Elena Kagan doubted the importance of that. She later testified against the Carrs. The other issue was whether the judge erred in refusing to sever the sentencing proceedings, so that each brother would receive his own hearing. But more death cases loom on the horizon.