Gov. Sam Brownback says he’s stunned by Kansas Supreme Court decisions overturning the death sentences of two brothers for a December 2000 robbery, rape and kidnapping spree that ended with four fatal shootings in Wichita.

Brownback said Friday that the decisions in the cases of Jonathan and Reginald Carr unnecessarily reopen the wounds from what he called a tragic moment in Wichita history.

In overturning the death sentences, the court’s majority said the brothers should have had separate sentencing proceedings to determine whether they faced lethal injection or life in prison. The court also overturned three of each man’s four capital murder convictions.

Brownback called the crimes brutal and heinous and said the Carrs were convicted by a jury of their peers before an elected trial-court judge.