Justices dismiss Illinois appeal of overturned verdict
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is leaving in place a court ruling that overturned a murder conviction of an Illinois man.
The justices on Wednesday dismissed the state's appeal in the case of Lawrence Owens eight days after they heard arguments from the two sides.
The dismissal leaves in place a federal appeals court decision that overturned a judge's conviction of Owens in the death of a drug dealer and called the judge's ruling "nonsense."
Owens has been imprisoned since his conviction in 2000 by a county judge who has since died. The appeals court said there was no physical evidence linking Owens to the killing of victim Ramon Nelson and no evidence that Owens knew Nelson, used drugs or had any gang affiliation.
The state can retry Owens or free him.
Court says Kansas court wrongly overturned death sentences
By Sam Hananel
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of Kansas officials seeking to reinstate the death penalty for three men, including two brothers convicted in a crime spree known as the "Wichita massacre."
The justices ruled 8-1 that the Kansas Supreme Court was wrong to overturn the sentences of Jonathan and Reginald Carr, and Sidney Gleason, who was convicted in a separate case.
The state court said juries in both cases should have been told that evidence of the men's troubled childhoods and other factors weighing against a death sentence did not have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The lower court also had ruled that the Carr brothers should have had separate sentencing hearings instead of a joint one.
The Supreme Court said the Kansas court's reasoning was flawed on both counts.
Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia said there is no requirement to tell jurors in a death sentence case that they can consider a factor favoring the defendant even if it's not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
"Jurors were told to consider any mitigating circumstance, even those not found to exist by other members of the jury," Scalia said. "Jurors would not have misunderstood these instructions to prevent their consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence."
The court also ruled that the district court was not required to hold separate a separate sentencing proceeding for each brother. Reginald Carr had argued that his sentence may have been unfairly tainted because Jonathan Carr blamed Reginald for being a bad influence during their childhoods.
"Only the most extravagant speculation would lead one to conclude that the supposedly prejudicial evidence introduced by one brother rendered the sentencing proceeding fundamentally unfair to the other," Scalia said.
Scalia said jurors at the sentencing phase heard plenty of evidence "of how these defendants tortured their victims, acts of almost inconceivable cruelty and depravity described firsthand for the jury by the lone survivor."
Prosecutors in the Carr case said the brothers were responsible for a night of mayhem and murder in 2000 when they broke into a Wichita home and, over the course of several hours, forced the three men and two women there to have sex with each other and later to withdraw money from ATMs.
The women were raped repeatedly before all five were taken to a snow-covered soccer field and shot in the head. One woman survived a gunshot wound to the head after the bullet was deflected by a plastic hair clip.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the lone dissenter, saying the case never should have been taken up by the Supreme Court. She said the Kansas Supreme Court "has overprotected its citizens" and had a right to do so under its interpretation of federal and state laws.
Scalia called Sotomayor's dissent "misdirected" and took a swipe at the Kansas Supreme Court, which has struck down death sentences in several other cases.
"When the Kansas Supreme Court time and again invalidates death sentences because it says the federal Constitution requires it, review by this court, far from undermining state autonomy, is the only possible way to vindicate it," Scalia said.
Gleason was convicted in the February 2004 killing of Mikiala Martinez and Darren Wornkey in Great Bend. Martinez was a potential witness against Gleason in a previous robbery in which he was involved. Wornkey was her boyfriend.
Justices rule against business in class-action case
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a class-action lawsuit can continue, even after a business offers to pay everything sought by the person who first sued.
The 6-3 ruling on Wednesday is a rare victory for consumers in a class-action case at the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court that a settlement offer cannot end a suit if the offer is unaccepted. "Once unaccepted, the offer is off the table," Ginsburg said.
The case involves unsolicited text messages sent by the Campbell-Ewald Company to the cellphone of California resident Jose Gomez. The messages were part of a recruitment campaign the company was running for the Navy. "Destined for something big? Do it in the Navy," the text began.
Gomez never consented to receive such messages and filed a class-action lawsuit under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Campbell-Ewald offered Gomez the $1,503 to which he was entitled, far less than the company might be liable for in a class action involving hundreds or even thousands of plaintiffs.
Gomez did not accept the offer, and lower courts ruled that the suit could proceed.
Businesses often try to end class actions essentially before they begin because the cost of the litigation as well as potential settlements can be prohibitively expensive. One tactic companies use is to try to remove the lead plaintiff through some sort of individual settlement.
Campbell-Ewald said the consumer protection law has allowed unwanted text messages to be turned into multimillion-dollar class-action settlements, with the bulk of the money going to lawyers instead of consumers.
Roberts wrote a dissent that was joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia. The company offered Gomez all he asked for, Roberts said. "Although Gomez nonetheless wants to continue litigating, the issue is not what the plaintiff wants, but what the federal courts may do," Roberts said. "The court today takes that important responsibility away from the federal courts and hands it to the plaintiff."
The text message recruitment campaign that Campbell-Ewald undertook for the Navy in 2006 did not run smoothly. Only about 100,000 messages were sent, though the campaign was supposed to reach 150,000 people. While Gomez was 40 years old when received a text, recruiters were seeking people age 18 to 24.
The case is Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 14-857.
Published: Fri, Jan 22, 2016
