Kansas v. Carr
| Decision Date | 20 January 2016 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 14–449,14–452.,14–450,s. 14–449 |
| Citation | 136 S.Ct. 633,577 U.S. 108,193 L.Ed.2d 535 |
| Parties | KANSAS, Petitioner v. Jonathan D. CARR. Kansas, Petitioner v. Reginald Dexter Carr, Jr. Kansas, Petitioner v. Sidney J. Gleason. |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Derek L. Schmidt, Attorney General, for Petitioner.
Jeffrey T. Green, Washington, D.C., for Respondents in No. 14–449 and in No. 14–452.
Neal K. Katyal, for Respondent in No. 14–450, for the Burden Question.
Stephen R. McAllister, Solicitor General, for Petitioner.
Rachel P. Kovner for the United States as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting the Petitioner.
Frederick Liu, for Respondent in No. 14–450.
Jeffrey T. Green, Washington, D.C., for Respondent in No. 14–449, for the Severance Question.
Derek Schmidt, Attorney General of Kansas, Jeffrey A. Chanay, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Stephen R. McAllister, Solicitor General of Kansas, Kristafer R. Ailslieger, Deputy Solicitor General, Natalie Chalmers, Assistant Solicitor General, David Lowden, Chief Assistant District Attorney, Topeka, KS, for Petitioner.
Jeffrey T. Green, Clayton G. Northouse, Kelly A. Rosencrans, Sidley Austin LLP, Washington, D.C., Sarah O'Rourke Schrup, Northwestern Univ. School of Law, Chicago, IL, Sarah Ellen Johnson, Meryl Carver–Allmond, Capital Appellate Defender Office, Topeka, KS, for Respondent Jonathan D. Carr.
Debra J. Wilson, Capital Appeals and Conflicts Office, Topeka, KS, Neal Kumar Katyal, Frederick Liu, Colleen E.R. Sinzdak, Jaclyn L. DiLauro, Eugene A. Sokoloff, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Washington, D.C., for Respondent Reginald Dexter Carr, Jr.
Jeffrey T. Green, Tobias S. Loss–Eaton, Brian Corman, Sidley Austin LLP, Washington, D.C., Sarah O'Rourke Schrup, Northwestern Univ. School of Law, Chicago, IL, Sarah Ellen Johnson, Meryl Carver–Allmond, Capital Appellate Defender Office, Topeka, KS, for Respondent Sidney J. Gleason.
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.
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.1 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 final shot.
The State ultimately charged Gleason with capital murder for killing Martinez and her boyfriend, first-degree premeditated murder of the boyfriend, aggravating kidnaping of Martinez, attempted first-degree murder and aggravated robbery of the elderly man, and criminal possession of a firearm. He was convicted on all counts except the attempted first-degree murder charge.
Id., at 1134–1135, 1146, 329 P.3d, at 1114, 1120. The jury also found that the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of four aggravating circumstances and unanimously agreed to a sentence of death. iD., at 1146–1147, 329 P.3D, at 1120–1121.
In December 2000, brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr set out on a crime spree culminating in the Wichita Massacre.2 On the night of December 7, Reginald Carr and an unknown man carjacked Andrew Schreiber, held a gun to his head, and forced him to make cash withdrawals at various ATMs.
On the night of December 11, the brothers followed Linda Ann Walenta, a cellist for the Wichita symphony, home from orchestra practice. One of them approached her vehicle and said he needed help. When she rolled down her window, he pointed a gun at her head. When she shifted into reverse to escape, he shot her three times, ran back to his brother's car, and fled the scene. One of the gunshots severed Walenta's spine, and she died one month later as a result of her injuries.
On the night of December 14, the brothers burst into a triplex at 12727 Birchwood, where roommates Jason, Brad, and Aaron lived. Jason's girlfriend, Holly, and Heather, a friend of Aaron's, were also in the house. Armed with handguns and a golf club, the brothers forced all five into Jason's bedroom. They demanded that they strip naked and later ordered them into the bedroom closet. They took Holly and Heather from the bedroom, demanded that they perform oral sex and digitally penetrate each other as the Carrs looked on and barked orders. They forced each of the men to have sex with Holly and then with Heather. They yelled that the men would be shot if they could not have sex with the women, so Holly—fearing for Jason's life—performed oral sex on him in the closet before he was ordered out by the brothers.
Jonathan then snatched Holly from the closet. He ordered that she digitally penetrate herself. He set his gun between her knees on the floor. And he raped her. Then he raped Heather.
Reginald took Brad, Jason, Holly, and Aaron one-by-one to various ATMs to withdraw cash. When the victims returned to the house, their torture continued. Holly urinated in the closet because of fright. Jonathan found an engagement ring hidden in the bedroom that Jason was keeping as a surprise for Holly. Pointing his gun at Jason, he had Jason identify the ring while Holly was sitting nearby in the closet. Then Reginald took Holly from the closet, said he was not going to shoot her yet, and raped her on the dining-room floor strewn with boxes of Christmas decorations. He forced her to turn around, ejaculated into her mouth, and forced her to swallow. In a nearby bathroom, Jonathan again raped Heather and then again raped Holly.
At 2 a.m.—three hours after the mayhem began—the brothers decided it was time to leave the house. They attempted to put all five victims in the trunk of Aaron's Honda Civic. Finding that they would not all fit, they jammed the three young men into the trunk. They directed Heather to the front of the car and Holly to Jason's pickup truck, driven by Reginald. Once the vehicles arrived at a snow-covered field, they instructed Jason and Brad, still naked, and Aaron to kneel in the snow. Holly cried, "Oh, my God, they're going to shoot us." Holly and Heather were then ordered to kneel in the snow. Holly went to Jason's side; Heather, to Aaron.
Holly heard the first shot, heard Aaron plead with the brothers not to shoot, heard the second shot, heard the screams, heard the third shot, and the fourth. She felt the blow of the fifth shot to her head, but remained kneeling. They kicked her so she would fall face-first into the snow and ran her over in the pickup truck. But she survived, because a hair clip she had fastened to her hair that night deflected the bullet. She went to Jason, took off her sweater, the only scrap of clothing the brothers had let her wear, and tied it around his head to stop the bleeding from his eye. She rushed to Brad, then Aaron, and then Heather.
Spotting a house with white Christmas lights in the distance, Holly started running toward it for help—naked, skull shattered, and without shoes, through the snow and over barbed-wire fences. Each time a car passed on the nearby road, she feared it was the brothers returning and camouflaged herself by lying down in the snow. She made it to the house, rang the doorbell, knocked. A man opened the door, and she relayed as quickly as she could the events of the night to him, and minutes later to a 911 dispatcher, fearing that she would not live.
Holly lived, and retold this play-by-play of the night's events to the jury. Investigators also testified that the brothers returned to the Birchwood house after leaving the five friends for dead, where they ransacked the place for valuables and (for good measure) beat Holly's dog, Nikki, to death with a golf club.
The State charged each of the brothers with more than 50 counts, including murder, rape, sodomy, kidnaping, burglary, and robbery, and the jury returned separate guilty verdicts. It convicted Reginald of one count of kidnaping, aggravated robbery, aggravated battery, and criminal damage to property for the Schreiber carjacking, and one count of first-degree felony murder for the Walenta shooting. Jonathan was acquitted of all counts related to the Schreiber carjacking but convicted of first-degree felony murder for the Walenta shooting. For the Birchwood murders, the jury convicted each brother of 4 counts of capital murder, 1 count of attempted first-degree murder, 5 counts of aggravated kidnaping, 9 counts of aggravated robbery, 20 counts of rape or attempted rape, 3 counts of aggravated criminal sodomy, 1 count each of aggravated burglary and burglary, 1 count of theft, and 1 count of cruelty to animals. The jury also convicted Reginald of three counts of unlawful possession of a firearm. 300 Kan. 1, 15–16, 331 P.3d 544, 573–574 (2014).
The State sought the death penalty for each of the four Birchwood murders, and the brothers were sentenced together. The State relied on the guilt-phase evidence, including Holly's two days of testimony, as evidence of four aggravating circumstances: that the defendants knowingly or purposely killed or created a great risk of death to more...
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