“The natural right to life is forfeitable, and the state’s imposition of the death penalty under Kansas’ capital sentencing scheme does not infringe upon the ‘inalienable’ right to life protected under Section 1,” Wall said in the opinion. Wall said the justices rejected the right-to-life argument as it related to capital punishment. The Carr brothers and other capital murder appellants seized upon that decision to argue the state’s capital murder sentencing scheme unconstitutionally infringed upon that right to life. In that ruling, the justices held Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights protected a broader range of rights than described in the U.S.

The opinion also waded into complexities of the state Supreme Court’s abortion opinion of 2019 in the controversial Hodes & Nauser v. Justice Kenyen Wall said in the state Supreme Court’s 160-page opinion the Sedgwick County District Court trial of the brothers was “less than perfect” but fair. Supreme Court had not addressed, including two supplemental state constitutional issues raised after the U.S. The Kansas Supreme Court reviewed more than 20 penalty phase issues the U.S. KSN Investigates: Why the death penalty isn’t being used in our state? Supreme Court sent the case back to the Kansas court. The nation’s highest court said the joint sentencing proceeding neither implicated the Carrs’ Eighth Amendment rights nor violated their rights under the due process clause. Back then, the court vacated the death sentence, concluding the Carrs’ Eighth Amendment rights to individualized sentencing were violated by the Sedgwick County District Court judge’s refusal to sever the penalty phase.īut two years later, the United States Supreme Court said the Kansas Supreme Court was wrong to overturn the death sentences. In 2014, the two brothers appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court. This was not the first time Kansas’ highest court heard the case of the Carr brothers. “The legal path to this day has been long and winding for the victims and their families, for the Wichita and Sedgwick County community, and for all of Kansas, but today’s decisions by the Kansas Supreme Court are welcome confirmations that although the wheels of justice may turn slowly they do ultimately propel us all forward.” Derek Schmidt, Kansas Attorney General

Kansas House committee votes to keep death penalty in placeĪfter the Kansas Supreme Court issued its ruling Friday morning, Attorney General Derek Schmidt released this statement:

Carr brothers murder wichita