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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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