USA - Kansas. U.S. Supreme Court restores death sentences for the Carr brothers, and Sidney Gleason.

U.S. Supreme Court restores death sentences for the Carr brothers, and Sidney Gleason. Reginald Carr, Jonathan Carr and Sidney Gleason, all Black, were sentenced to death in 2002 for the killing of 4 people in December 2000. The victims were Aaron Sander, 29, Brad Heyka, 27, Jason Befort, 26, and Heather Muller, 25, and Ann Walenta, 55. The death sentences for the three men had been vacated in 2014 after the Kansas Supreme Court determined their Eighth Amendment rights to avoid cruel and unusual punishment were infringed upon because jurors weren’t instructed that mitigating evidence doesn’t need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The Kansas Supreme Court also said brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr should have had separate sentencing hearings. On Wednesday, the nation’s high court dismissed that argument in an 8-1 ruling. (See also NOVEMBER 14, 2002 and July 25, 2014)