WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas death penalty case involving a drug user who fatally shot a sheriff goes before the U.S. Supreme Court this week, a year after the state high court overturned the man’s capital conviction.
The Wichita Eagle reports Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Cheever’s attorney will have an hour Wednesday to make their cases before the justices.
Scott Cheever has admitted killing Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels in January 2005, but the 32-year-old says heavy meth use made him unable to understand what he was doing.
At Cheever’s trial in 2007, the state called a witness who had given Cheever a mental exam and determined he knew what he was doing when he shot Samuels.
That testimony prompted the state Supreme Court last year to overturn the verdict.
