Topeka ? Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said Friday he will appeal last month’s Kansas Supreme Court decision vacating the death sentences of convicted murderers Jonathan and Reginald Carr, along with another capital punishment case overturned by the state’s high court.

Schmidt said he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review all three cases, saying he believes the Kansas court misapplied federal constitutional requirements.

“We are not convinced that the Kansas court’s application of federal constitutional requirements is correct, so we are requesting review of all three cases by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Schmidt said. “In each case, we doubt the U.S. Constitution compelled the Kansas court to set aside the death sentences that were recommended by juries of the defendants’ peers.”

The Carr brothers had been convicted of multiple murders stemming from a crime spree in December 2000 when they broke into a home, abducted five people, robbed them and subjected them to sexual assaults, then stripped them naked and shot them execution-style, leaving them for dead on a frozen field on the outskirts of Wichita. One of the victims survived the attack.

In a 6-1 ruling July 25, the court vacated their death sentences, saying in part that the penalty phase of their trials should have been separated.

Former Justice Nancy Moritz, who has since taken a seat on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, dissented in that case.

A week earlier, on July 18, the same court ruled 5-2 to overturn the death sentence of Sidney Gleason, who’d been convicted of killing two people in Great Bend in 2004. The court said in that case that the jury was given improper instructions on how to weigh mitigating circumstances.

Moritz and Justice Dan Biles dissented in that opinion, saying the death sentence should have been upheld.

In the 20 years since Kansas reinstated the death penalty, the state Supreme Court has overturned every death sentence appealed to it.

Schmidt, who is running for re-election, said he will work with Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett on the appeal of the two Carr decisions.

“On behalf of the victims and their families, I believe it is incumbent on the state to seek review of these decisions to ensure every effort has been made to preserve the jury’s verdict and uphold justice for the citizens of Kansas,” Bennett said. “With Attorney General Schmidt, I look forward to the opportunity to bring these cases to this nation’s highest court.”