News & Commentary

Across the ideological spectrum, numerous Kansas organizations and impacted citizens have come together on the problem of financially devastating our state’s minors and working families — and together, we’re calling on our lawmakers to move swiftly to correct it.

Kansas citizens face criminal penalties for using cannabis to ease their medical suffering. For example, according to the Kansas ACLU’s press release, last December a Hays, KS man who was terminally ill and and facing the final stages of inoperable cancer had police search his room.

According to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Kansas Highway Patrol trooper used a tactic referred to as the “Kansas Two Step,” in which troopers target motorists with out-of-state license plates or those traveling to or from Colorado, where recreational marijuana is legal.

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - A Sedgwick County judge said Thursday that the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) challenge to jury selection and death qualification in capital murder cases is valid.

A law professor told a Wichita judge that the way juries are chosen in death penalty cases and then reach the verdict is unreliable. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had Scott Sundby, professor of law at the University of Miami School of Law, testify on Tuesday.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas and ACLU National's Capital Punishment Project are trying to prove that it is impossible to get fair and impartial juries in capital murder cases in Kansas.

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.