In 2014, the Kansas Supreme Court overturned his death sentence, ruling that instructions given to the jury violated the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Kansas Attorney General’s Office asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state Supreme Court’s decision. On October 7, 2015, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt argued the State’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which on January 20, 2016, ruled no Eighth Amendment violation had occurred and reversed the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision.
After the U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Kansas Supreme Court ordered further arguments in the case. Today’s decision upholds Gleason’s conviction and death sentence following those further arguments.
“The decision today affirms the conviction and death sentence based on a Barton County jury’s findings and moves this case along one step further,” Schmidt said. “The wheels of justice are turning.”
Gleason becomes the fourth person in Kansas whose sentence of death has been upheld by the Kansas Supreme Court since the death penalty was reinstated. The other three are Scott Cheever, John Robinson and Gary Kleypas.
Gleason was convicted of killing Darren Wornkey and his girlfriend, Mikiala “Miki” Martinez, in what prosecutors charged was an attempt to threaten Martinez to keep her from telling police about an earlier armed robbery.
An accomplice in the killings, Damien Thompson, agreed to plead guilty to the first-degree murder of Martinez and testify against Gleason in exchange for a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years. A jury convicted Gleason in 2006 of capital murder, premeditated first-degree murder for killing Wornkey, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and criminal possession of a firearm. The jury sentenced Gleason to death following the penalty-phase of the trial.