USA - Kansas. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Kansas Supreme Court's decision to throw out Scott Cheever's death sentence

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned the Kansas Supreme Court's decision to throw out Scott Cheever's death sentence for the 2005 fatal shooting of Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels. This decision sends the case back to the Kansas Supreme Court for further proceedings. On August 24, 2012 the Kansas court said Cheever's Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination were violated by prosecutors who used a court-ordered mental evaluation from a different trial against him. Cheever's own expert argued that methamphetamine use had damaged his brain. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that because Cheever's side raised the brain damage issue, prosecutors were entitled to use testimony from the mental health expert from a different trial against him. That expert said Cheever killed because of an anti-social personality, not because of brain damage. The court agreed with Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt's argument that once Cheever's defense presented mental health issues, he was not protected from answering rebuttal questions from prosecutors.