The Kansas Supreme Court overturned the death sentences of two brothers who massacred four people on the technicality of them not being tried separately during the sentencing phase
In a case that became known as the Wichita Massacre, brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr broke into a Wichita, Kans. home in December 2000 and forced three men and two women to have sex which each other before shooting each of them in the head.
Jonathon, then 20, and Reginald, then 22, forced the five victims to have sex with each other. The two women were also repeatedly raped by the brothers. Then they kidnapped the five and forced them to withdraw money from ATMs. Finally they took all five to a snow covered soccer field where each was shot in the back of the head execution style. One of the women, a 25-year-old school teacher identified only as H.G., survived because her metal barrette deflected the bullet. H.G. ran naked through the snow seeking help. She was a compelling witness against the brothers during their trial.
In 2002, Jonathan, now 34, and Reginald, now 36, were tried and convicted on 93 counts, including capital murder, rape, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery. The brothers were sentenced to death.
The Carr brothers had an extensive criminal history. Just prior to the Wichita Massacre, they robbed Andrew Schreiber, 23, a Newman University assistant basketball coach. Three days later they shot and mortally wounded Ann Walenta, 56, a cellist with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, as she tried to escape being robbed by them.
On Friday, in a 6-1 ruling, the Kansas Supreme Court overturned the death sentences because the brothers were not tried separately during the penalty phase of the trial. The court upheld 57 of the 93 convictions, but overturned three of the four capital murder convictions. Most of the overturned convictions involved the counts charging the brothers with forcing the victims to have sex with each other.
In the three capital murder convictions that were overturned, the court ruled that the instructions to jurors had been flawed because the judge tied those charges to the rape of the surviving victim rather than to the four murdered ones.
On the remaining capital murder conviction, the court ordered that the brothers be returned to the Sedgwick County District Court for a new penalty phase of the trial, with each to be tried and resentenced separately.
The Sedgwick County District Attorney has not decided whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme court, but he has promised to continue seeking the death penalty.
Here we have a case in which there was overwhelming evidence of guilt, but the Kansas Supreme Court chose to overturn the death sentences of two worthless pieces of shit on technicalities. Damn those damn technicalities! Justice is being denied the four murdered victims – Aaron Sander, 29, Brad Heyka, 27, Jason Befort, 26, and Heather Muller, 25 – and their loved ones. And justice is also being denied Ann Walenta and her loved ones.
I have no objection when a death penalty is overturned because the defendant had a piss-poor attorney, or where the prosecution withheld mitigating or other evidence favorable to the accused, or where a serious error was made during trial, but none of that applies in this case. What the Kansas Supreme Court did is a dirty rotten shame!
By the way, right after these horrendous murders, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were nowhere to be found screaming for the scalps of the killers. Could that be because the victims were white and the Carr brothers black?
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