REASONABLE DOUBT

Kansas v. Carr

Issues

This case will be heard along side Kansas v. Gleason (14-552). Read our preview here.

Is a joint capital sentencing proceeding between two brothers sufficiently prejudicial to require severance, and must a jury contemplating capital punishment be instructed that mitigating circumstances “need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt?”

Court below

Kansas Supreme Court

The Supreme Court will determine whether a joint capital-sentencing proceeding between two brothers and a jury instruction that does not affirmatively state mitigating circumstances “need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt” violate the Eighth Amendment. See Brief for Petitioner, the State of Kansas at i. Kansas argues that the circumstances did not require severing the penalty hearings given the jury instruction and interrelated nature of the Carrs’ upbringing, and there is no affirmative duty to instruct juries that mitigating circumstances need not meet any particular burden of proof. See id. at 25, 54. Jonathan and Reginald Carr argue that severance was required because the sentencing proceeding was prejudicial, and the jury instructions were misleading and prevented the jury from properly weighing the mitigating circumstances. See Brief for Respondent, Jonathan D. Carr at 17–18, 43; Brief for Respondent, Reginald Dexter Carr, Jr. at 16, 34. The Court’s ruling will likely affect the severance standard used in multi-defendant capital punishment cases and how jurors are instructed in such cases. See Brief of Amicus Curiae The Promise of Justice Initiative (“PJI”), in Support of Respondents at 2; Brief of Amici Curiae Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (“CJLF”) et al., in Support of Petitioner at 7.

Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

Whether the trial court’s decision not to sever the sentencing phase of the co-defendant brothers’ trial here—a decision that comports with the traditional approach preferring joinder in circumstances like this—violated an Eighth Amendment right to an “individualized sentencing” determination and was not harmless in any event?
Whether the Eighth Amendment requires that a capital-sentencing jury be affirmatively instructed that mitigating circumstances “need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” as the Kansas Supreme Court held here, or instead whether the Eighth Amendment is satisfied by instructions that, in context, make clear that each juror must individually assess and weigh any mitigating circumstances?

Brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr were found guilty of committing several violent crimes, including capital murder, stemming from three incidents that occurred in December 2000 in Wichita, Kansas. See State v. Carr, 331 P.3d 544, 573–74 (Kan.