News & Commentary

In an unprecedented evidentiary hearing, the court will consider a critical question: If the death penalty is racially discriminatory, arbitrary, and serves no valid public safety purpose, does it violate the Kansas Constitution?

The death penalty goes on trial today in Kansas. The ACLU argues that a correct reading of the Kansas Constitution would throw out capital punishment in the state. As Frank Morris of member station KCUR reports, the multiday hearing is challenging the death penalty in a new light.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is using a Wichita murder case to fight the Kansas death penalty law, which it believes is unconstitutional. On Monday, Feb. 6, a Sedgwick County District Court judge will begin hearing the case.

The ACLU of Kansas brought attention to a bill that proposes “proposes an old-fashioned literacy test, with a curriculum that includes the very Constitution bills like this one contradict, before individuals can exit probation, fully reenter community, or vote.”

In a little more than a week, a challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to the death penalty in Kansas will go before a Sedgwick County judge. Attorneys for the ACLU are making the case that the use of the death penalty is discriminatory and doesn’t serve its punitive purpose.

The ACLU says that when the Kansas Supreme Court in 2019 found that the state constitution protects abortion, a decision called Hodes, the justices set a “strict scrutiny” standard for laws that infringe on fundamental rights.

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas asked the state’s supreme court to release prisoners with pre-existing medical conditions such as heart disease, hypertension and diabetes – risk factors that make them more vulnerable to Covid-19.