"These defendants tortured their victims, acts of almost inconceivable cruelty and depravity described firsthand for the jury by the lone survivor," Scalia said. ![]() ![]() The state asked to restore the death sentences, and a majority of justices agreed. In the Kansas case, the state Supreme Court had struck down death sentences against three convicted murderers because of instructions given to the juries and, in the case of two brothers, the use of a joint sentencing hearing rather than separate ones. The case had exposed the same tensions and fault lines over the death penalty first revealed on the final day of the court's last term in June, when it ruled 5-4 to uphold a controversial form of lethal injection. Then, four justices spoke emotionally about the relative correctness or cruelty of capital punishment, and Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it might be unconstitutional. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the decision, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor the lone dissenter. The court ruled 8-1 that death sentences handed down against three men in what became known as the "Wichita Massacre" in 2000 should not have been tossed out for procedural reasons by Kansas' highest court. ![]() ![]() WASHINGTON - Despite deep divisions over capital punishment, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that in the case of some particularly heinous Kansas murders, death was the appropriate penalty.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |