http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-449_9o7d.pdf
The Kansas Supreme Court vacated the death penalties in both cases. It held that the instructions used in both Gleason’s and the Carrs’ sentencing violated the Eighth Amendment because they “failed to affirmatively inform the jury that mitigating circumstances need only be proved to the satisfaction of the individual juror in that juror’s sentencing decision and not beyond a reasonable doubt.” ......
The Kansas Supreme Court also held that the Carrs’ death sentences had to be vacated because of the trial court’s failure to sever their sentencing proceedings, thereby violating the brothers’ Eighth Amendment right “to an individualized capital sentencing determination.”......According to the court, the joint trial “inhibited the jury’s individualized consideration of [Jonathan] because of family characteristics tending to demonstrate future dangerousness that he shared with his brother”; and his brother’s visible handcuffs prejudiced the jury’s consideration of his sentence......As for Reginald, he was prejudiced, according to the Kansas Supreme Court, by Jonathan’s portrayal of him as the corrupting older brother....Moreover, Reginald was prejudiced by his brother’s cross-examination of their sister, who testified that she thought Reginald had admitted to her that he was the shooter. Id., at 279, 331 P. 3d, at 719. (She later backtracked and testified, “‘I don’t remember who was, you know, shot by who[m].’” Ibid.) The Kansas Supreme Court opined that the presumption that the jury followed its instructions to consider each defendant separately was “defeated by logic.” Id., at 280, 331 P. 3d, at 719. “[T]he defendants’ joint upbringing in the maelstrom that was their family and their influence on and interactions with one another . . . simply was not amenable to orderly separation and analysis.” ....
Before considering the merits of that contention, we consider Gleason’s challenge to our jurisdiction. According to Gleason, the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision rests on adequate and independent state-law grounds.....
The Kansas Supreme Court’s opinion leaves no room for doubt that it was relying on the Federal Constitution.....
In any event, our case law does not require capital sentencing courts “to affirmatively inform the jury that mitigating circumstances need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”.....
The alleged confusion stemming from the jury instructions used at the defendants’ sentencings does not clear that bar. A meager
“possibility” of confusion is not enough......
We reject the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision that jurors were “left to speculate as to the correct burden of proof for mitigating circumstances.”
The Kansas Supreme Court agreed with the defendants that, because of the joint sentencing proceeding, one defendant’s mitigating evidence put a thumb on death’s scale for the other, in violation of the other’s Eighth Amendment rights....
The mere admission of evidence that might not otherwise have been admitted in a severed proceeding does not demand the automatic vacatur of a death sentence.....
There is no reason to think the jury could not follow its instruction to consider the defendants separately in this case.....
It is improper to vacate a death sentence based on pure “speculation” of fundamental unfairness, “rather than reasoned judgment,” ....
The judgments of the Supreme Court of Kansas are reversed, and these cases are remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, dissented on the sole grounds that the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court had been based on STATE LAW not Federal law and as such the US Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to hear the case.
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