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Frazier Cross Kansas Death Row

Frazier Cross aka Glenn Cross aka Frazier Miller was sentenced to death by the State of Kansas for a triple murder. According to court documents Frazier Cross a known white supremacist would shoot and kill three people outside of a Jewish Community Center.and a retirement home. The two people shot and killed at the Jewish Community Center were William Lewis Corporon and his grandson, 14-year-old Reat Griffin Underwood. Terri LaManno was shot and killed outside of the Village Shalom, a retirement home. Frazier Cross was named as the only suspect in the shootings and would soon be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

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Frazier Cross More News

White supremacist Frazier Glenn Cross was convicted Monday of capital murder in the killings of three people at two Kansas Jewish centers last year — convictions he’d predicted and told jurors he expected.

Frazier Cross, 74, pleaded not guilty even though he defiantly admitted having killed Dr. William Corporon, 69, and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Underwood, outside Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Terri LaManno, 53, outside the Village Shalom retirement center in April 2014. None were Jewish.

The jury will return Tuesday morning to begin deciding whether Cross gets the death penalty.

Frazier Cross — a former leader of the defunct White Patriot Party of North Carolina who is also known as Glenn Miller — gave a Nazi salute and said “Sieg Heil” after the verdicts were read.

Cross was also charged with three charges of attempted first-degree murder for shooting three other people who survived.

The verdicts came after a wild morning in Olathe, Kansas, that saw District Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan eject Cross from the courtroom after he denounced all of the court officers as Jewish sympathizers.

Cross testified in his own defense and spent much of Friday explaining how he wanted to kill as many Jews as possible at the Jewish centers.

Cross erupted during jury instructions when Ryan told jurors not to consider “sympathy and prejudice” for either side, The Associated Press reported.

The AP reported that after Ryan told him to show respect for the court, Cross replied: “Respect? I have no respect for you, this court or any damn thing associated with it. In fact, I hate every damn one of you because you are whores of the Jews.”

Earlier, Cross told jurors in closing arguments that he wanted to avenge “the genocide against white people by Jews” and asked jurors to “show great courage” by finding him not guilty

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/jewish-center-shootings/jury-begins-deliberations-frazier-cross-booted-court-jewish-center-killings-n419081

James Kahler Kansas Death Row

James Kahler was sentenced to death by the State of Kansas for the murders of four family members. According to court documents James Kahler would shoot and kill his his wife, his mother-in-law, and his two teenage daughters. James Kahler claimed he snapped after a job loss and divorce so attempted an insanity defense. Prosecutors said he is making an excuse to cover up his crimes. The jury would find him guilty and sentenced him to death.

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The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision Monday in the Kahler v. Kansas case, ruling 6-3 that states aren’t required to allow an insanity defense to show the defendant lacked the moral capacity to know right from wrong.

James Kahler, former director of Columbia Water & Light, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 2011 for killing his estranged wife, two teenage daughters and his wife’s grandmother in Burlingame, Kansas, on Thanksgiving weekend 2009. His 10-year-old son escaped.

James Kahler and his wife, Karen Kahler, were in the process of getting a divorce, and his attorney argued that Kahler was severely depressed and unable to control his actions the night of the quadruple murder.

Kansas abolished its insanity defense in 1995 changing it to a mens rea, or mental state, approach.

That meant the defense could no longer argue mental illness prevented the defendant from knowing an act was wrong. Instead, the argument could be made that due to mental illness, a defendant did not intentionally commit the crime — a key component of any conviction.

Kahler’s attorney argued that Kansas’ abolition of the insanity defense was unconstitutional because it violated Kahler’s protection from cruel and unusual punishment and his right to due process. The case was struck down by the Kansas Supreme Court in February 2018 and was taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court in October of last year.

Kahler’s legal team argued that someone who is mentally ill and cannot understand his actions are morally wrong cannot be held responsible for those actions, according to previous Missourian reporting.

The central argument was that Kansas law only addresses the defendant’s intent to commit the crime, not whether they are insane or don’t know right from wrong.

Kansas is one of four states that does not have an insanity defense. The Supreme Court’s ruling establishes that abolishing the insanity defense does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s protection from cruel and unusual punishment or the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of due process.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the majority opinion with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas concurring.

For the dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer delivered the opinion and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor concurred.

In her opinion, Kagan said the Kansas law did not abolish the insanity defense. She wrote that the question of an insanity test is not one of constitutional law but one to be left to the states.

“(Kansas) has just not adopted the particular insanity defense Kahler would like,” she said. “That choice is for Kansas to make — and, if it wishes, to remake and remake again as the future unfolds.”

Breyer said in his dissent that the Kansas law goes against legal tradition dating back to the origin of the nation.

“Our tradition demands that an insane defendant should not be found guilty in the first place.”

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/kahler-loses-in-supreme-court-effort/article_0a4baff2-6dfe-11ea-87f0-73334f02da58.html

Justin Thurber Kansas Death Row

Justin Thurber was sentenced to death by the State of Kansas for the rape and murder of a college student. According to court documents Justin Thurber would stalk, kidnap and sexually assault Jodi Sanderholm before murdering the nineteen year old. Justin Thurber would hide the body in a forested area and it was not found for several days. Justin Thurber would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

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Eleven years after her death and nine years after her murderer was convicted, Jodi Sanderholm’s family is back in court. Once again, they had to re-live the nightmare of her kidnapping, rape and murder.

“It takes a long, long time to go through all of this,” said Brian Sanderholm, Jodi’s father said after the hearing Friday morning. “You learn to have lots and lots of patience.”

In June, the State Supreme Court ordered attorneys to go back to district court in Cowley County to decide whether Justin Thurber is developmentally disabled under new guidelines issued, and whether he still qualifies to receive his sentence of lethal injection. Attorneys argued last year during a larger appeal that Thurber’s IQ was in the 70s and 80s, which many medical researchers consider to be borderline impaired.

Sanderholm’s family said they disagreed with the decision last summer by the state Supreme Court, but they also said they respect the legal process.

“It is what it is and we can’t argue with the court system,” Cindy Sanderholm said.

The court proceedings Friday were procedural, future meetings were set to discuss evidence and new witnesses that could be submitted by either the State of Kansas or Thurber’s attorneys. Thurber himself was not there, he remained in the El Dorado Correctional Facility due to a medical condition.

Sanderholm’s family was in the courtroom, after years of trips into courtrooms and years of recalling Jodi’s death, they remained mostly optimistic as they go through the legal process once again.

“To me, they’re using her case as an example to help other cases further on,” Cindy Sanderholm said.

They hope all of these years later, as Thurber goes back to court, that the focus remains on Jodi.

“Just show her pictures, don’t show him. He doesn’t deserve to have all the press on him. We don’t want to forget her,” Cindy Sanderholm said. “She was a great girl, beautiful girl. Smart, intelligent, she was just one of a kind.”

They still carry those pictures in wallets, purses, even as a locket on a bracelet. But more importantly they keep the memories close to their heart, too. They try to stay positive but still shed a few tears.

“Yeah, it happens still, but it’s not often and it’ll be okay,” Cindy Sanderholm said. “We’re going to see her again someday.”

They, and attorneys for both parties will return to the courts in March.

https://www.kake.com/story/39569858/death-sentence-re-examined-in-jodi-sanderholm-case

Gary Kleypas Kansas Death Row

Gary Kleypas was sentenced to death by the State of Kansas for the kidnapping and murder of a college student. According to court documents Gary Kleypas followed the victim, Carrie Williams, home where he sexually assaulted and murdered the young woman. Gary Kleypas who was on parole for murder at the time would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

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The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death sentence of Gary Kleypas, who raped and murdered a Pittsburg State University student at her home in 1996.

In its 166-page majority decision, the state’s highest court said it found several errors but none that warranted vacating Kleypas’ capital murder conviction or death sentence imposed for the March 1996 rape and murder of 20-year-old Carrie Williams.

The court did, however, throw out his attempted rape conviction and ordered that he be resentenced for his aggravated burglary conviction.

Writing for the court’s majority, Justice Marla Luckert said Kleypas’ death sentence “was not imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor.” She is one of five state Supreme Court justices seeking retention on Nov. 8.

Justice Lee Johnson dissented, reiterating his view that the death penalty violates the Kansas Constitution’s prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment

“Given my view that the death penalty is categorically unconstitutional for every person convicted of murder in this state, I see no reason for a detailed discussion of all the other holdings by the majority with which I disagree,” he wrote.

Gary Kleypas, 61, was Kansas’ first death row inmate after lawmakers reinstated capital punishment in 1994. He had to be resentenced after the Kansas Supreme Court overturned his first death sentence in 2001.

Jurors handed down his second death sentence in 2008.

In his latest appeal, Kleypas’ attorneys had argued, among other things, that jurors who condemned him in 2008 should have been removed from the case after seeing Williams’ father lunge at Kleypas in court.

But the court sided with the state’s insistence that the judge’s response to the would-be courtroom attack was “reasonable and rational,” given that jurors who witnessed it were properly vetted about whether they could be impartial.

Kleypas was on parole from a 1977 murder conviction out of Missouri when he murdered Williams at her off-campus home.

“I’m encouraged the State’s position that this case was properly tried and the defendant was properly convicted and sentenced under applicable law has been affirmed,” Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in a statement after the ruling.

Kleypas’ death sentence is the third upheld by the Kansas Supreme Court over the past year. It also affirmed death sentences for Johnson County serial killer John Robinson Jr. – known for storing his victims’ bodies in barrels – and for Scott Cheever, who fatally shot Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid in 2005.

Cheever’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling but it has not said whether it will hear the case

Also on Friday, the Supreme Court upheld capital murder and aggravated arson convictions – but vacated an attempted rape conviction – of Douglas Belt, who sexually assault and decapitated Wichita housekeeper Lucille Gallegos in 2002.

Because Belt died in prison in April before his appeal could be heard, the court looked only at issues that could lead to his exoneration. The court held that the attempted rape conviction and the sentence attached to it must be thrown out because it was multiplicitous with his capital murder conviction.

No one has been executed in Kansas since 1965. Ten men currently are on death row.

https://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article109629772.html

Scott Cheever Kansas Death Row

Scott Cheever was sentenced to death by the State of Kansas for the murder of Sheriff Matthew Samuels. According to court documents Sheriff Matthew Samuels was heading to a residence to serve an arrest warrant on Scott Cheever and when the Officer arrived he was shot and killed. Scott Cheever was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

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Scott Cheever More News

The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the capital murder conviction and death sentence of Scott Cheever, who was convicted of gunning down Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid in 2005.

In a 52-page opinion penned by Justice Eric Rosen, the state’s high court rejected Cheever’s claims that errors occurred during the guilty-phase of his trial.

The court in the ruling also identified four errors — including improper comments made and the district court judge’s instructions to jurors — that occurred during the sentencing phase of Cheever’s trial. But the court said none, considered alone or collectively, reached the threshold required to throw out his death sentence.

“In light of the record as a whole, the total effect of these errors had very little, if any, likelihood of changing the jury’s ultimate conclusion that death was the appropriate sentence,” Rosen wrote.

Cheever claimed jurors who decided his fate weren’t told mitigating factors — which seek leniency in sentencing — presented in the penalty phase of a trial needn’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be used in the weighing process. In death penalty cases, a jury hears evidence both in support of execution and against it, and then decides which carries greater weight.

He also claimed a prosecutor unfairly harmed his chances at life imprisonment when he told jurors they should reject requests for leniency on the basis of Cheever’s methamphetamine use.

The court expressed disapproval at the remark in Friday’s ruling, but said that the error was harmless.

The decision to uphold Cheever’s death sentence was 6-1.

https://www.kansas.com/article91217657.html