Kansas v. Marsh

The United States Supreme Court reversed a decision of the Kansas Supreme Court and reinstated the death penalty in Kansas. In 1995, Marsh murdered a young mother and set the house on fire, burning her 19-month-old daughter to death. The state court had held that the state’s death penalty statute was unconstitutional because it required a verdict of death in the extremely unlikely event that the jury found the aggravating and mitigating factors precisely equal. CJLF argued and the Court held that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit a capital sentencing statute from operating in this manner. [CJLF brief in PDF.]