Justice Dan Biles concurred with the majority but wrote the issues of Section 1 were decided more than 20 years ago in a separate death penalty appeal by Gary Kleypas, who was sentenced to die for the 1996 murder of Carrie Williams, a 20-year-old student at Pittsburg State University. “The natural right to life is forfeitable, and the state’s imposition of the death penalty under Kansas’ capital sentencing scheme does not infringe upon the ‘inalienable’ right to life protected under Section 1,” Wall said in the opinion. Wall said the justices rejected the right-to-life argument as it related to capital punishment. The Carr brothers and other capital murder appellants seized upon that decision to argue the state’s capital murder sentencing scheme unconstitutionally infringed upon that right to life. In that ruling, the justices held Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights protected a broader range of rights than described in the U.S. The opinion also waded into complexities of the state Supreme Court’s abortion opinion of 2019 in the controversial Hodes & Nauser v.
Justice Kenyen Wall said in the state Supreme Court’s 160-page opinion the Sedgwick County District Court trial of the brothers was “less than perfect” but fair. Supreme Court had not addressed, including two supplemental state constitutional issues raised after the U.S.
The Kansas Supreme Court reviewed more than 20 penalty phase issues the U.S. KSN Investigates: Why the death penalty isn’t being used in our state? Supreme Court sent the case back to the Kansas court. The nation’s highest court said the joint sentencing proceeding neither implicated the Carrs’ Eighth Amendment rights nor violated their rights under the due process clause. Back then, the court vacated the death sentence, concluding the Carrs’ Eighth Amendment rights to individualized sentencing were violated by the Sedgwick County District Court judge’s refusal to sever the penalty phase.īut two years later, the United States Supreme Court said the Kansas Supreme Court was wrong to overturn the death sentences. In 2014, the two brothers appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court. This was not the first time Kansas’ highest court heard the case of the Carr brothers. “The legal path to this day has been long and winding for the victims and their families, for the Wichita and Sedgwick County community, and for all of Kansas, but today’s decisions by the Kansas Supreme Court are welcome confirmations that although the wheels of justice may turn slowly they do ultimately propel us all forward.” Derek Schmidt, Kansas Attorney General Justice Caleb Stegall affirmed the majority's decision but wrote that he did so with “deep doubts and reluctance." Stegall was the lone dissenter in the 2019 ruling protecting abortion rights and said the opinions in the Carr brothers' cases add “clarity and dreadful effect to the egregious consequences" of that case.Kansas House committee votes to keep death penalty in placeĪfter the Kansas Supreme Court issued its ruling Friday morning, Attorney General Derek Schmidt released this statement: Other issues they raised included the instructions that were given to jurors and how closing arguments were conducted.Ĭhief Justice Marla Luckert wrote in both opinions that the trial was “riddled by error” and that she was convinced that the threshold had been reached for vacating the brothers’ sentences. In their latest appeal, the brothers raised questions about the fact that their cases weren't conducted separately when jurors were considering whether the death penalty was warranted. Supreme Court reversed that decision in 2016, returning the case to the Kansas court. The Kansas court upheld their convictions in 2014 but overturned their death sentences, concluding that not having separate hearings violated the U.S. Other crimes over six days left a fifth person dead.Įach of the brothers accused the other of carrying out the crimes. One of the women survived to testify against the Carr brothers. Four victims died: Aaron Sander, 29 Brad Heyka, 27 Jason Befort, 26 and Heather Muller, 25. The women were raped repeatedly before all five were taken to a soccer field and shot. Prosecutors said the brothers broke into a home in December 2000 and forced the three men and two women there to have sex with one another and later to withdraw money from ATMs.