State to try Scott Cheever for murder
Hearing in Eureka today for sheriff’s accused killer
Thursday, October 26, 2006
The murder case of a man accused of shooting Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels last year has returned to state court after having been diverted to federal court when the Kansas death penalty law was in legal limbo.
The attorney general’s office said it will seek the death penalty. It filed eight felony charges Wednesday in Greenwood County District Court against Scott Cheever, including one count of capital murder, four counts of attempted capital murder, two drug charges and one count of illegal possession of a firearm.
Samuels was killed in January 2005 while trying to serve a search warrant at a home in the Hilltop area of Greenwood County. Killing a law enforcement official is one of the grounds for execution by lethal injection.
Cheever was scheduled to make his first appearance at 11 a.m. today in Eureka.
Attorney General Phill Kline filed a capital murder case against Cheever, 25, shortly after the sheriff’s death, but he and U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren agreed in March 2005 to bring the case to federal court.
That decision came four months after the Kansas Supreme Court struck down the state’s capital punishment law. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law, meaning Cheever could be executed by the state if convicted.
“It is only fitting that this case be returned to Kansas, the Kansas court system,” Kline spokeswoman Sherriene Jones said.
Melgren’s office in Wichita asked U.S. District Judge Monti Belot to dismiss the case.
“There’s no longer only one way to seek the death penalty against the killer of Sheriff Samuels,” said Jim Cross, spokesman for Melgren’s office. “We’re clearing the decks for the attorney general to proceed with that case.”
Jury selection began in Cheever’s federal trial in September, but Belot stopped the process and delayed the trial so Cheever could have a new public defender to represent him.
Cross said moving the case to state court will give a new attorney adequate time to prepare Cheever’s defense.
Cheever faced 13 charges in federal court, including murder during a drug trafficking crime, which made him eligible for a federal death sentence.
He was arrested after a seven-hour standoff. He also is accused of shooting at two deputies as they were trying to remove Samuels from the house and at Kansas Highway Patrol troopers as they entered the home’s upstairs, where Cheever and a working meth lab were found.
Samuels’ death helped prompt enactment of a Kansas law restricting access to some cold and flu allergy medicines with an ingredient that is key to making methamphetamine. The law was named for the slain sheriff.
Jones said Assistant Attorney General Steve Maxwell would handle the new case against Cheever, working with the Greenwood County attorney and Melgren’s office.
But there’s a possibility the attorney general’s office could change hands in the Nov. 7 election, less than two weeks away. Kline, a Republican seeking a second term, is in a difficult race against Democrat Paul Morrison, the Johnson County district attorney.
Morrison said he talked to Melgren’s office about the case possibly returning to state court, and believes it’s an appropriate step. Morrison said Melgren’s office asked him whether he’d be interested in handling the case should he win the election.
“As attorney general, I’d be happy to oversee that case and perhaps try it myself,” said Morrison, who handled the case of serial killer John E. Robinson Sr. in 2002 and obtained a death sentence.