Kansas Law
The Kansas capital punishment law was narrowly passed in 1994. The law provides the option of the death penalty in cases of intentional, premeditated murder when one of these factors is also present:
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kidnapping or aggravated kidnapping for ransom; |
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contract murder; |
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murder of any person by an inmate in a correctional facility; |
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murder of a victim of rape, criminal sodomy, or aggravated criminal sodomy in the attempt to commit, commission of, or subsequent to the crime; |
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murder of a law enforcement officer; |
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murders of more than one person during the same act or in two or more acts connected as part of a common scheme; |
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murder of a child under the age of 14 in the commission of kidnapping or when the kidnapping is done with the intent to commit an unlawful sex offense upon or with the child, or with the intent that the child commit or submit to a sex offense. |
The law prohibits the sentence of death for people who were under 18 at the time of the time or who are mentally retarded.
There are two phases to the prosecution, one to determine guilt or innocence, and one to decide on the penalty, in which mitigating or aggravating circumstances may be argued.
What is the alternative? Individuals convicted of capital murder who do not receive the death penalty will be sentenced to either twenty-five or fifty years in prison before even being considered for parole. On July 1, 2004, the alternative sentence becomes life without parole.
Upon conviction, the case is automatically reviewed by the Kansas Supreme Court.
How would the sentence be carried out?
The death sentence would be carried out by lethal injection. The 1999 Legislature worked out some details of implementation. Because involvement in executions is considered an ethics violation by the medical and nursing professional associations, Kansas may use former military medics or paramedics. Death row prisoners are held at the El Dorado Correctional Facility. Those prisoners are all male; any women sentenced to death would be held at the Topeka Correctional Facility under the current plan.
Prisoners would be transferred to Lansing shortly before the execution date, in order to protect corrections personnel from the trauma of carrying out the execution of someone they've come to know over a number of years.
The execution chamber is located in the Old Administration building, the multi-story building section in the left of the photo below.
Kansas Coalition
Against the Death Penalty
P.O. Box 2065
Topeka, Kansas 66601-2065
785-232-5958
kcadp1176@cox.net
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