Topeka ? 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 in southeast Kansas. Killing a law enforcement official is one of the grounds for execution by lethal injection.

Cheever is scheduled to make his first appearance at 11 a.m. today in Eureka, the Greenwood County seat.

Atty. Gen. Phill Kline filed a capital murder case against Cheever, 25, shortly after the sheriff’s death, but he and U.S. Atty. 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,” 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 would give a new attorney adequate time to prepare Cheever’s defense.

Jones said Assistant Atty. Gen. 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 with Melgren’s office about the case possibly returning to state court, and thinks 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,” Morrison said.