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07-22-2005, 05:43 AM
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http://www.kansas.com/images/common/spacer.gifPosted on Fri, Jul. 22, 2005http://www.kansas.com/images/common/spacer.gifhttp://www.kansas.com/images/common/spacer.gif
State death penalty on Dec. 7 docket
BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle
The Kansas death penalty has a date with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The nation's highest court has set Dec. 7 to hear arguments over the state's capital punishment law -- nearly one year after the Kansas Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline will appear before the U.S. Supreme Court to argue in favor of the law. Last year, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Kansas court's decision.
Rebecca Woodman of the Kansas appellate defender's office is expected to argue for letting the state court's decision stand.
Also at issue will be whether Kline has standing to argue against a point that he didn't contest during arguments before the Kansas Supreme Court.
The whole case is a sticky legal issue.
On Dec. 17, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that the law unfairly favored the state over the defendant. The death penalty law, as passed by the Legislature in 1993, said that if all considerations were equal, juries should impose the death penalty.
Before the law was passed, then-Attorney General Carla Stovall told lawmakers that the law could be unconstitutional. They didn't listen.
The argument is that the law oversteps the constitutional presumption of innocence granted to defendants in criminal cases.
In 2001, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional but did not strike it down altogether. Instead, the court said a jury instruction could remedy the fault. That decision called into question the death sentences for three inmates of the El Dorado Correctional Facility.
Three years passed, and four more men were issued death sentences.
During the latest arguments, the state did not defend the death law's constitutionality, but instead agreed with the earlier decision that the jury instruction was all that was needed.
The state's high court later stayed its decision until after the review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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http://www.kansas.com/images/common/spacer.gifPosted on Fri, Jul. 22, 2005http://www.kansas.com/images/common/spacer.gifhttp://www.kansas.com/images/common/spacer.gif
State death penalty on Dec. 7 docket
BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle
The Kansas death penalty has a date with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The nation's highest court has set Dec. 7 to hear arguments over the state's capital punishment law -- nearly one year after the Kansas Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline will appear before the U.S. Supreme Court to argue in favor of the law. Last year, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Kansas court's decision.
Rebecca Woodman of the Kansas appellate defender's office is expected to argue for letting the state court's decision stand.
Also at issue will be whether Kline has standing to argue against a point that he didn't contest during arguments before the Kansas Supreme Court.
The whole case is a sticky legal issue.
On Dec. 17, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that the law unfairly favored the state over the defendant. The death penalty law, as passed by the Legislature in 1993, said that if all considerations were equal, juries should impose the death penalty.
Before the law was passed, then-Attorney General Carla Stovall told lawmakers that the law could be unconstitutional. They didn't listen.
The argument is that the law oversteps the constitutional presumption of innocence granted to defendants in criminal cases.
In 2001, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional but did not strike it down altogether. Instead, the court said a jury instruction could remedy the fault. That decision called into question the death sentences for three inmates of the El Dorado Correctional Facility.
Three years passed, and four more men were issued death sentences.
During the latest arguments, the state did not defend the death law's constitutionality, but instead agreed with the earlier decision that the jury instruction was all that was needed.
The state's high court later stayed its decision until after the review by the U.S. Supreme Court.