Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office is preparing for arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court next month. As KPR’s Stephen Koranda reports, the justices will consider death sentences that were overturned by the Kansas Supreme Court.
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At issue are the Carr brothers murders from Wichita in 2000 and the case of Sindney Gleason convicted of murders in 2004 in Barton County. The Kansas Supreme Court overturned the death sentences in those cases, but left the underlying convictions intact. For the Carr brothers, the Kansas high court said they should have had separate sentencing hearings. In the Gleason case, the court said improper jury instructions were given. The attorney general’s office will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Kansas Supreme Court came to the wrong conclusion when overturning the death sentences.