News & Commentary

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.

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.

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?

She said he accepted the speeding ticket from KHP, but didn’t believe he should drive away while Schulte peppered him with additional questions. The recording revealed Schulte scolded Shaw for driving too fast and not pulling over quickly. It also confirmed Schulte performed the trooper two-step.

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.

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 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.”

Kansas ACLU policy director Aileen Berquist said runoff elections discouraged voter engagement and were based on discriminatory practices that began in the Jim Crow era to disenfranchise Black voters.