HOUSTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of a 22-year-old Houston man described by authorities as leader of a gang responsible for at least four murders and dozens of robberies.

Dexter Darnell Johnson was convicted of the June 2006 shooting deaths of a young couple during a carjacking.

Johnson's case is one of three Texas death row cases - all from Houston - acted on by the high court Monday.

Justices also upheld the conviction of 54-year-old Max Soffar, who was retried in 2006 for a shooting rampage at a bowling alley that killed three in 1980.

And the court has refused to rehear its rejection of an appeal from Linda Carty, a 51-year-old British grandmother convicted of murdering a 20-year-old woman and kidnapping the victim's newborn son in 2001.

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