Supreme Court restores 3 death sentences

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court restored death sentences Wednesday for three Kansas murderers by an 8- 1 vote, undercutting predictions by some that a majority on the court is ready to strike down capital punishment nationwide.

Speaking in court, Justice Antonin Scalia described the “notorious Wichita massacre” in which two brothers broke into a home in 2000, tortured f ive young men and women and then took them to a snowy f ield where they were “shot in the back of the head, execution- style.”

Amazingly, one young woman survived when a hair clip def lected a bullet, and she later testified against Reginald and Jonathan Carr. A jury convicted the pair of the four murders and sentenced them to death.

The Kansas Supreme Court reversed both death sentences as well as another for Sidney Gleason, a paroled inmate who participated in the robbing and killing of an elderly man over $ 35 and a box of cigarettes. Gleason then killed two others who knew about the man’s death.

The state justices said the jurors may have been confused about whether they had to agree on a single reason for extending mercy to the killers.

State prosecutors appealed, and the justices with near unanimity reversed the state court’s judgments.

The jury in the f irst case heard “how these defendants tortured their victims, acts of almost inconceivable cruelty and depravity de- scribed firsthand by the lone survivor,” Scalia said. The jurors were “repeatedly told they could consider any mitigating factor,” he said.

“It is improper to vacate a death sentence based on pure speculation of fundamental unfairness,” Scalia continued. “Only the most extravagant speculation would lead to the conclusion that the supposedly prejudicial evidence renders the Carr brothers’ joint sentencing procedure fundamentally unfair.”

All the members of the court joined Scalia’s opinion in full, except Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who issued a partial dissent. She did not endorse the state court’s decision, but instead said the justices should have passed up the chance to review it.

“The standard adage teaches that hard cases make bad law,” she said. “I fear that these cases suggest a corollary: Shocking cases make too much law. Because I believe the court should not have granted certiorari here, I respectfully dissent.”