Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt yesterday formally appealed the Carr brothers' capital murder sentences to the US Supreme Court. In July, the Kansas Supreme Court overturned three of the four death sentences for each of the brothers. KMUW's Aileen LeBlanc reports . . .
Jonathan and Reginald Carr broke into a Wichita house in December of 2000. After a night of robbery, sexual assault and finally execution-style murders, four young people were dead. One of the young women had managed to survive a gunshot to her head.
Twelve years after the murders, the Carrs' attorneys' appeals were heard by the Kansas Supreme Court. The court left intact one death sentence for each brother but they overturned three. Now, Attorney General Derrick Schmidt is asking the US Supreme Court to review the lower court's decisions.
The appeal includes questions including:
- Does the eighth amendment, which prohibits, cruel and unusual punishment, mean that the jury, in a capital sentencing phase, needed to be "affirmatively instructed that mitigating circumstance need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt?”
- Also, did the brothers have a right to confront witnesses against them, even after having been found guilty.
- And, was it correct to sentence the two brothers together?
Schmidt also asked the court to review the vacated death penalty for Sidney Gleason who was convicted of murdering 2 people in Barton County in 2004.
The US Supreme Court is expected to make a decision as to whether to hear any or all of these cases before the end of the current term in June 2015.
Reginald Carr appeal by AG Schmidt to the Us Supreme Court
