US Supreme Court hears capital cases roiling Kansas politics

The Kansas cases argued Wednesday focused on two distinct procedural issues that affect sentencing.

The justices will also hear arguments Wednesday on the Sidney Gleason case.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt (left) meets with victims’ families on the Supreme Court steps after arguing Carr case.

The state court ruled that jurors received flawed instructions about mitigating evidence and said the brothers should have been sentenced separately.

They’re seeking Koch’s correspondence with utility companies regarding a bill he unsuccessfully sponsored that would have cut the amount utilities must pay when they buy excess electricity generated by home solar power systems.

Neal K. Katyal, a lawyer for one of the brothers told the justices, said, “a man is being put to death under jury instructions that are so confusing that there is a reasonable likelihood that a few juries would interpret those instructions to bar consideration of the mitigating circumstances and others would not”. “These have to rank as among the worst”. The brothers raped the women, forced the men to have intercourse with the women and ordered the women to perform sex acts on each other. One of those kidnapped, a woman named in court papers as Holly G., managed to survive because a bullet deflected off a hair-clip she was wearing.

She walked naked through snow to the nearest residence, and she testified at the trial of Reginald and Jonathan Carr, who were 22 and 20, respectively, at the time of the incident. Brad Heyka, Heather Muller, Aaron Sander and Jason Befort were killed.

“They’re not going anywhere”, Foulston said. “A moment I will not forget”.

Reginald, sometimes known as “Big Smoke”, was 23 at the time.

Defense attorneys for the Carr brothers did not return calls for comment.

Liu countered that Scalia himself in an earlier decision noted that “the egregiousness” of an offense is just one factor considered when sentences are set.

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

Both issues before the court touch on the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The state sought to restore the death sentences, and a majority of justices appeared to agree.

“Joint proceedings can enhance fairness and accuracy”, argued Rachel P. Kovner, assistant to the US solicitor general, adding “they prevent arbitrary disparities that may arise when two juries reach inconsistent conclusions about the common facts of a single crime”. His concern was that if the court were to sustain the Kansas court ruling, “it would affect every criminal trial of gangs across the country”. Moreover, during their closing arguments prosecutors specifically discussed the role of jurors in considering all of the evidence that had been presented to them.

James said her group hasn’t decided yet whether it will campaign against the four justices, but state GOP Chairman Kelly Arnold said he would endorse voting against their retention.

Schmidt also noted that since the Carr brothers were tried, Kansas now requires more specific jury instructions. Thomas is a consistent death-penalty supporter. Kansas reinstated capital punishment in 1994 but has yet to execute any convicted murderers since then because the state’s highest court hasn’t upheld any death sentence.

Nine men now sit on death row in Kansas. That would suggest, said Scalia, that the people of Kansas, unlike Justice Breyer, favor the death penalty and that an election would not come out favorably for those justices who would reverse these convictions.

As the justices plowed through the two arguments, peppering council with questions, there were occasional echoes of last term’s death penalty contretemps, and there was one foray by Justice Scalia into Kansas politics, a state where Republican officials are trying to remove funding for the courts.