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Thread: Scott Dever Cheever - Kansas Death Row

  1. #21
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Kansas Supreme Court upholds death sentence of man who killed Greenwood County sheriff

    The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the conviction and death sentence of Scott Cheever, the man who shot and killed Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid in 2005.

    It was only the second time the state’s high court has upheld a death sentence since Kansas reinstated capital punishment in 1994.

    And the decision comes amid intense political scrutiny of the court during an election year in which the Kansas Republican Party has openly called for four of the seven Supreme Court justices to not be retained this year, in part over controversy stemming from earlier death penalty cases.

    In 2012, the court initially overturned Cheever’s conviction and death sentence, saying in part that the trial court in Greenwood County violated his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination by allowing evidence to be introduced from a court-ordered psychiatric examination.

    The court said the testimony of Dr. Michael Welner should never have been admitted. It did not address the question of whether Welner’s testimony unfairly influenced the jury.

    But the U.S. Supreme Court the following year reversed the Kansas court in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, saying the prosecution was entitled to present that witness to rebut Cheever’s claim that he was not mentally competent at the time of the killing because he had been abusing drugs.

    In a 52-page opinion released Friday, written by Justice Eric Rosen who is not up for retention this year, the Kansas court, in a 6-1 ruling bowed to the U.S. Supreme Court by agreeing that Welner’s testimony was admissible.

    The court went on to say, “Welner's testimony, while questionable in form, did not, in substance, exceed the proper scope of rebuttal, either constitutionally or under state evidentiary rules.”

    It also said none of the other issues that Cheever’s attorneys raised on appeal warranted reversing the verdict or death sentence.

    Justice Lee Johnson, who is also not up for retention this year, wrote a dissenting opinion saying he believes the death penalty violates the Kansas Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2016/ju...ntence-man-wh/
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  2. #22
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    What amazes me the most is that there was STILL dissent even after the USSC reversed the court.

  3. #23
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Fact's Avatar
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    Well the dissent was on totally different grounds.

  4. #24
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Cheever's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Kansas
    Case Numbers: (99,988)
    Decision Date: July 20, 2017

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/17-6252.html

  5. #25
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Kansas Death-Row Prisoners File Suit Challenging Conditions of Confinement

    2 death-sentenced prisoners in Kansas have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the state’s policy of automatic solitary confinement for death-row prisoners is unconstitutional. The 2 prisoners, Sidney Gleason and Scott Cheever, have been held in isolation for 14 and 12 years, respectively. Seven of the 10 people on Kansas’ death row have been kept in solitary confinement for more than 10 years.

    The prisoners’ lawsuit asserts that the practice of incarcerating all death-row prisoners in automatic, indefinite solitary confinement “is extreme, debilitating, and inhumane, violates contemporary standards of decency, and poses an unreasonable risk of serious harm to the health and safety of Plaintiffs.” The suit alleges that prisoners are denied “meaningful human contact for years on end.”

    The lawsuit describes the conditions on death row, saying that prisoners are confined in cells “roughly the size of a typical spot in a parking lot” for 22 to 24 hours a day. Prisoners are allowed one hour of exercise, alone in a small cage, 4 or 5 days a week.

    These exercise sessions, they say, are sometimes scheduled in the middle of the night, “thus eliminating any chance of seeing daylight.” In addition, prisoners are “allowed no opportunities to participate in congregate religious activity, educational or self-improvement programs, or any other type of prison programming, or to hold a prison job.” Under the state’s policy for housing death-row prisoners, those on death row are held in more restrictive conditions than other prisoners convicted of homicide and are isolated in solitary confinement regardless of their behavior.

    These conditions, the suit claims, “have not only created a serious risk of harm to their health and safety, but undoubtedly have caused such harm, both psychological and physical, to them.” It explains that mental health experts, physicians, corrections experts, and human rights experts all agree that prolonged solitary confinement causes “severe damage” to human beings.

    In 2015, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “[R]esearch still confirms what this Court suggested over a century ago: Years on end of near-total isolation exact a terrible price.” Citing studies on rates of prison violence, the suit argues that holding death-row prisoners in solitary confinement does nothing to promote prison safety.

    The practice of automatic solitary confinement for death-sentenced prisoners is decreasing nationwide as a result of a series of death-row prison conditions lawsuits. Since 2019, six states have significantly changed the conditions of confinement for people on death row. Virginia, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Oregon all ended automatic solitary confinement for death-row prisoners. Prisoners in those states have gained access to programs and rights previously reserved for general population prisoners, including educational and occupational programs, group religious services, and contact visits with family members. California announced the creation of a pilot program in February 2020 to allow some of the state’s death-sentenced prisoners to move from San Quentin’s death row to general population in other maximum-security prisons that offer work and other rehabilitative programs.

    (source: Death Penalty Information Center)
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  6. #26
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    The Kansas Federal District Court has denied Cheever and Gleason’s lawsuit against the the KDOC’s solitary confinement policy.

    https://law.justia.com/cases/federal...555/133892/20/
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