Kansas v. Carr (577 U.S. 108)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 20, 2016 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 577 U.S. 108 · 136 S. Ct. 633
- Decided
- January 20, 2016
- Term
- October Term 2015
- Vote
- 8–1
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. The Supreme Court of Kansas vacated the death sentences of Sidney Gleason and brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr. Gleason killed one of his co-conspirators and her boyfriend to cover up the robbery of an elderly man. The Carrs' notorious Wichita crime spree culminated in the brutal rape, robbery, kidnaping, and execution-style shooting of five young men and women. We first consider whether the Constitution required the sentencing courts to instruct the juries that mitigating circumstances "need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt." And second, whether the Constitution required severance of the Carrs' joint sentencing proceedings. I A Less than one month after Sidney Gleason was paroled from his sentence for attempted voluntary manslaughter, he joined a conspiracy to rob an elderly man at knifepoint. Gleason and a companion "cut up" the elderly man to get $10 to $35 and a box of cigarettes. 299 Kan. 1127, 1136, 329 P.3d 1102, 1115 (2014). Fearing that their female co-conspirators would snitch, Gleason and his cousin, Damien Thompson, set out to kill co-conspirator Mikiala Martinez. Gleason shot and killed Martinez's boyfriend, and then Gleason and Thompson drove Martinez to a rural location, where Thompson strangled her for five minutes and then shot her in the chest, Gleason standing by and providing the gun for the…
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