News & Commentary

Puberty blockers, mastectomies, surgeries that remove “any body part or tissue” and prescribing estrogen to males or testosterone to females to treat gender dysphoria could be essentially unavailable in Kansas to people under 18 due to a bill in the Statehouse would cost doctors their licenses.

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.

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.

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.”