KANSAS v. CHEEVER

On January 19, 2005, Scott D. Cheever shot and killed Greenwood County Sheriff Matthew Samuels at the residence of Darrell and Belinda Coopers in Hilltop, Kansas. Samuels had gone to the Coopers’ residence based on a tip to arrest Cheever for outstanding warrants. He found the Coopers, Cheever, and two others cooking and ingesting methamphetamines. In the following attempts to arrest Cheever and retrieve the injured Samuels, Cheever also shot at several other officers.

At trial, Cheever asserted a voluntary intoxication defense and argued that the methamphetamine use rendered him mentally incapable of the premeditation required for murder. During the course of the trial, the judge ordered Cheever to undergo a psychiatric examination conducted by a psychiatric hired by the government. The prosecution sought to bring the transcript of the interview into evidence to impeach Cheever’s testimony regarding the order of events at the Coopers’ residence, which the court allowed. After the defense rested their case, the prosecution called the psychiatrist to the stand as a rebuttal witness to respond to the defense’s claims regarding Cheever’s mental capacity at the time of the crime. The trial court allowed the psychiatrist’s testimony as a rebuttal witness. The jury found Cheever guilty and, at a separate sentencing hearing, sentenced him to death. The Kansas Supreme Court held that the admission of the government psychiatrist’s testimony into evidence violated Cheever’s Fifth Amendment rights.