In this Jan. 24, 2005, file photo, Scott Cheever sits in court in Eureka, during his first court appearance on capital murder charges in connection with the shooting death of Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels. The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday, July 22, 2016, upheld the death sentence imposed against Cheever who fatally shot Samuels during a 2005 drug raid. (David Doemland/The Emporia Gazette Pool via AP)

Topeka ? The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the conviction and death sentence of Scott Cheever, the man who shot and killed Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid in 2005.

It was only the second time the state’s high court has upheld a death sentence since Kansas reinstated capital punishment in 1994.

And the decision comes amid intense political scrutiny of the court during an election year in which the Kansas Republican Party has openly called for four of the seven Supreme Court justices to not be retained this year, in part over controversy stemming from earlier death penalty cases.

In 2012, the court initially overturned Cheever’s conviction and death sentence, saying in part that the trial court in Greenwood County violated his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination by allowing evidence to be introduced from a court-ordered psychiatric examination.

Scott Cheever

The court said the testimony of Dr. Michael Welner should never have been admitted. It did not address the question of whether Welner’s testimony unfairly influenced the jury.

But the U.S. Supreme Court the following year reversed the Kansas court in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, saying the prosecution was entitled to present that witness to rebut Cheever’s claim that he was not mentally competent at the time of the killing because he had been abusing drugs.

In a 52-page opinion released Friday, written by Justice Eric Rosen who is not up for retention this year, the Kansas court, in a 6-1 ruling bowed to the U.S. Supreme Court by agreeing that Welner’s testimony was admissible.

The court went on to say, “Welner’s testimony, while questionable in form, did not, in substance, exceed the proper scope of rebuttal, either constitutionally or under state evidentiary rules.”

It also said none of the other issues that Cheever’s attorneys raised on appeal warranted reversing the verdict or death sentence.

Justice Lee Johnson, who is also not up for retention this year, wrote a dissenting opinion saying he believes the death penalty violates the Kansas Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Attorney General Derek Schmidt said Friday’s ruling probably marks the end of the first phase of Cheever’s appeals.

“Unless the United States Supreme Court takes the highly unusual step of agreeing to hear this case a second time, today’s ruling marks the end of the first line of appeals in this case,” he said. “I’m encouraged the Kansas Supreme Court has agreed that this case was properly tried and the defendant was properly convicted and sentenced under applicable law.”

In November, the Kansas Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of serial killer John E. Robinson Sr., of Olathe, marking the first death sentence the court upheld. Robinson was convicted of killing three women in Kansas and hiding their bodies in barrels. He was also accused of multiple murders in Missouri.

The last executions carried out in Kansas were in 1965 when James Latham and George York were hanged for murders they committed in a cross-country killing spree.