The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the death sentences of brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr for four murders committed in December 2000 in Wichita.
The ruling brought the state one step closer to seeing its first execution since 1965.
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Reginald Carr, 44, and Jonathan Carr, 41, were condemned to death by lethal injection in 2002 in Sedgwick County District Court for capital murder in the gunshot killings in Wichita of Jason Befort, 26; Aaron Sander, 29; Heather Muller, 25; and Brad Heyka, 27.
The four hadn’t previously known the Carrs. They were victimized sexually before being driven to a soccer field, forced to kneel in the snow and shot in the back of the head.
A fifth person, a woman, also was shot in the back of the head, but a hair clip diverted the bullet, saving her life. The woman ran to a house for help and to report the slayings. She provided key testimony during the Carr brothers’ trial.
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The Carr brothers also were convicted of first-degree murder in the Wichita gunshot death of 55-year-old Ann Walenta on Dec. 11, 2000.
The Kansas Supreme Court in 2014 vacated the death sentences for both, concluding their Eighth Amendment right to an individualized sentencing was violated by the Sedgwick County District Court judge’s refusal to sever their trial’s penalty phase.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 reversed that decision, saying the joint sentencing proceeding neither implicated the Carrs’ Eighth Amendment rights nor violated their rights regarding due process. It remanded the case back to Kansas courts.
Friday’s decision came after the high court subsequently reviewed more than 20 penalty phase issues that had not been previously addressed, including two supplemental state constitutional issues raised after the 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The Kansas high court on Friday rejected both challenges raised under the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights.
It held that capital punishment does not infringe on the “inalienable right to life,” that bill provides.
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The court said that although the framers of the Kansas Constitution intended the right to be inalienable, they did not intend it to be nonforfeitable.
It concluded that a defendant who has been convicted of capital murder beyond reasonable doubt forfeits that right.
Kansas law calls for juries hearing capital murder cases to first decide if the defendant is guilty. Then, if jurors reach a guilty verdict, they decide if the defendant is to die by lethal injection.
That state maintains a lethal injection chamber, where it plans to carry out executions, in an administration building at Lansing Correctional Facility, but no execution date has ever been set for any of the inmates facing death sentences.
Hanging was the state’s method of capital punishment when it carried out its last execution, of spree killers James Latham and George York in June 1965.
Two months earlier, the state had hanged Perry Smith and Richard Hickock for the murders committed near Garden City of four members of the Herbert Clutter family. The case was the subject of Truman Capote’s best-selling book, “In Cold Blood.”
Source: https://t-tees.com
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