The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday overturned death sentences for Jonathan and Reginald Carr, brothers convicted of murdering five people in one of Wichita’s most notorious crime sprees.
The state’s high court in separate rulings issued Friday unanimously struck down three of each man’s four capital murder convictions in the Dec. 15, 2000, execution-style killings of four people in a snow-covered soccer field. A remaining capital murder conviction for each man was upheld by the court, but the death sentence connected to it was vacated after a 6-1 majority said the district court judge who presided over the brothers’ trial – the late Paul W. Clark – was in error when he refused to hold separate sentencing proceedings for the men.
Justice Nancy Mortiz disagreed with the decision, saying that separate hearings would not have influenced the outcome because witness testimony, the “unusually egregious facts” of the case and evidence against the Carr brothers was so strong.
In overturning the capital murder convictions, the majority said the instructions to jurors had been flawed because the judge tied those capital murder charges to the rape of the surviving victim rather than the deceased ones. The majority also said three of the capital murder charges were duplicates of the first.
The court on Friday also narrowly rejected the brothers’ contention, on a 4-3 vote, that all their convictions should be overturned because they were not given separate trials.
Justices affirmed 25 of Jonathan Carr’s 43 convictions; 32 of Reginald Carr’s 50 convictions were upheld.
The case has been remanded to Sedgwick County District Court for further hearings.
Read more here:
www.kansas.com/2014/07/25/3567714/jonathan-and-reginald-carr-death.html#storylink=cpy