Arguments heard in Carr brothers’ case before state Supreme Court

Attorneys for Jonathan and Reginald Carr sought to spare the brothers’ lives at the Kansas Supreme Court on Thursday, raising several legal questions under state law after federal challenges to their death sentences faltered.

Thursday marked the second time the brothers’ cases came before the state high court. The Kansas Supreme Court overturned the brothers’ death sentences in July 2014, citing flaws in their joint trial and sentencing hearings.

The U.S. Supreme Court then overturned the state court’s findings in a 2016 opinion. The brothers are again challenging their death sentences by raising similar objections, but by citing state law rather than federal law.

Although both men are seeking the same outcome, attorneys for both argued that the other harmed their case.

During oral arguments, an attorney for Reginald Carr objected to the way the two brothers were tried together.

“The joint trial in this case left the state and Jonathan Carr to gang up on Reginald Carr,” said attorney Debra Wilson.

Jonathan Carr’s attorney, Sarah Ellen Johnson, argued that it was Reginald Carr’s behavior in court that was harmful when the two men were sentenced together. She called Reginald Carr’s behavior throughout the trial one of the “biggest problems.”

The two men were viewed together, she argued, and that extended to the trial.

“When Jonathan is sitting next to a man that can’t even behave himself and has to be restrained, we share that, too,” Johnson said.

The Kansas Supreme Court has previously held that the district court judge who presided over the brothers’ trial was in error when he refused to hold separate sentencing proceedings for the men.

Wilson also argued that Reginald Carr was unable to provide evidence to create residual doubt among the jury. She said that often juries may find proof beyond a reasonable doubt that crimes were committed but aren’t able to find no doubt – and that they sometimes hold off on the death penalty because of it.

Assistant Sedgwick County District Attorney David Lowden told the justices that Reginald Carr’s defense attorneys never disputed his guilt during the penalty phase of the trial, but instead embraced it.

“The defense attorney, not once … did that attorney indicate anything other than the fact Reginald Carr had committed these offenses,” Lowden said.

The brothers were convicted in 2002 of terrorizing, robbing, sexually assaulting, kidnapping and murdering a group of young people on Dec. 15, 2000, as part of a seven-day crime spree across Wichita.

Jason Befort, 26, Brad Heyka, 27, Aaron Sander, 29, and Heather Muller, 25, were killed in an execution-style shooting after being forced to kneel in a frozen soccer field at 29th Street North and Greenwich.

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled 6-1 in 2014 to vacate the brothers’ death sentences. Since then, Justice Caleb Stegall has joined the court.

Justice Dan Biles, who was in the majority in the 2014 opinion, appeared to suggest his view hadn’t changed.

“My biggest problem with this case (is) the problems that are presented are almost completely self-inflicted by the state,” Biles said.

The case has had implications outside of whether the two men will ultimately be executed. The Supreme Court’s decision in 2014 led to multiple campaigns to oust justices in retention elections, in 2014 and 2016.

In both elections, voters retained every justice on the ballot. Voters have never opted to remove a justice in Kansas.

This story was originally published May 4, 2017 at 12:40 PM with the headline "Arguments heard in Carr brothers’ case before state Supreme Court."