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Governor may call special session for Legislature
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius isn't ruling out calling legislators into special session later this year to respond to a Kansas Supreme Court ruling on education funding or fix the state's death penalty law.

State's last supervisor of prison executions dies
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Charles McAtee, who supervised the state's last four executions 40 years ago, including the hangings of two men whose murders of a western Kansas family inspired the book "In Cold Blood," has died.

Death penalty: Kansans continue to debate capital punishment decades later
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
In the days when the West was being won, frontier justice often was meted with a rope at the nearest tree, eliminating the complexities of judge and jury.

Legislators angered by high court decisions
Sunday, March 27, 2005
The justices of the Kansas Supreme Court haven't been making many friends lately, certainly not among legislators. First, they knocked down the state's death penalty, then demanded the state spend more money on education.

Senate adopts death penalty resolution
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Having decided to gamble on a potential U.S. Supreme Court decision, senators on Tuesday adopted a resolution urging that court to resurrect the state's capital punishment law.

Senate to debate death penalty
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Prosecutors have warned Kansas legislators that tinkering with the state's death penalty law this year could end up keeping seven convicted murderers, once condemned to die, off death row forever.

Area senators split on judicial confirmation
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Lawrence's two state senators are on opposites sides of a proposal to require Senate confirmation of Kansas Supreme Court justices.

Opponents urge repeal of state's death penalty law
Thursday, January 27, 2005
With legislators struggling to respond to a court ruling striking down the state's death penalty law, capital punishment opponents are asking them to repeal the statute instead of trying to fix it.

Timing of legislative action on death penalty ruling debated
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Legislators should wait for a potential U.S. Supreme Court decision before attempting to rewrite the state's death penalty law, the parents of a capital murder victim said Monday.

D.A. urges delay on reviving death penalty
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Sedgwick County's top prosecutor wants legislators to delay reviving the state's death penalty law, but a key senator dismissed her concerns Wednesday as "baloney."

Critics want to slow death penalty debate
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Some legislators and prosecutors worry that the Legislature is moving too quickly in trying to resurrect the state's death penalty law after the Kansas Supreme Court struck it down.

Sebelius tells Legislature to get to work
Sunday, January 2, 2005
As she prepares for the 2005 legislative session, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is urging lawmakers to get to work on school finance and defending her proposed cigarette tax increase to expand health insurance.

AG seeks reconsideration of death penalty
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Atty. Gen. Phill Kline asked the Kansas Supreme Court on Wednesday to reconsider a recent decision striking down the state's death penalty law.

Death penalty, racial profiling proposals await lawmakers
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Abolishing the death penalty, making racial profiling a crime and setting up government health insurance for all Kansans are among a wide range of proposals already in the Legislature's in-basket.

Death penalty debate likely broader than response to court
Saturday, December 25, 2004
The Legislature's debate next year over capital punishment probably won't be limited to fixing a flaw that led the Kansas Supreme Court to strike down the state's death penalty law.

Governor likely to sign death penalty fix
Friday, December 24, 2004
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said she probably would sign legislation to fix a flaw in the state's death penalty law that led the Kansas Supreme Court to strike it down as unconstitutional.

Court issues stay of death penalty
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
The Kansas Supreme Court agreed Monday to stay its ruling that the state's death penalty law was unconstitutional.

Supreme Court overturns death penalty in Kansas
Saturday, December 18, 2004
In a stunning decision that rocked state leaders, a sharply divided Kansas Supreme Court on Friday declared the state's death penalty unconstitutional and re-ignited the debate over capital punishment.

Kansas Supreme Court strikes down death penalty
Friday, December 17, 2004
(Updated Saturday at 3:14 p.m.) A divided Kansas Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty.

Kansas Supreme Court rules death penalty unconstitutional
Friday, December 17, 2004
The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday ruled the state's 1994 death penalty law unconstitutional in 4-3 decision that centered on technical error in the law. The state Legislature could fix the problem during its upcoming session.

Missouri shying away from death penalty
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Just a few years ago, Missouri trailed only Texas and Virginia in the number of convicted killers put to death. Today, Missouri's death row is gradually being emptied by the courts.

Death penalty law changes face debate
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Advocates for the disabled on Monday sought changes to Kansas law that they said would protect from the death penalty people with severe mental disabilities who are convicted of murder.

Legislators consider death penalty changes
Monday, November 29, 2004
(Updated Monday at 4:09 p.m.) State legislators met today to consider changes to Kansas law that are designed to protect from the death penalty people with severe mental disabilities who commit murder.

Death sentences hit 30-year low
Monday, November 15, 2004
The number of people sentenced to death reached a 30-year low in 2003, when the death row population fell for the third year in a row, the government reported Sunday.

Missouri case at heart of death-penalty debate
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Eleven years later, the chilling imagery of her sister's murder still makes Pertie Mitchell shiver.

Senate sends life-without-parole bill to governor
Thursday, April 1, 2004
(Web Posted Thursday at 1:48 p.m.) A bill giving juries the option of sentencing someone to life in prison without parole is headed to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius after the Senate agreed Thursday to technical changes approved by the House.

Supreme Court lifts death sentence
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
The Supreme Court, normally bitterly divided on capital punishment cases, was unanimous Tuesday in saying a Texas death row inmate who came within minutes of execution should get another chance to appeal his murder conviction.

Comic book superhero uses powers to save inmates on death row
Monday, February 23, 2004
The comic book world has a new superhero whose focus isn't fighting crime, but fighting the death penalty.

Senate panel endorses sentencing alternative
Thursday, February 19, 2004
A Senate committee endorsed a bill Wednesday to make life without parole the alternative sentence in capital murder cases.

Life without parole considered as option in death penalty cases
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
(Updated Wednesday at 2:44 p.m.) TOPEKA - A Senate panel heard testimony Wednesday in support of a bill that would give juries the option of recommending life without possibility of parole in death penalty cases.

Bill would clarify mental retardation in capital cases
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Senators heard support Tuesday for a bill intended to clarify Kansas' prohibition on executing mentally retarded defendants.

Death penalty opponents urge moratorium
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
(Web Posted Wednesday at 11:11 a.m.) Death penalty opponents today urged Kansas lawmakers to impose a two-year moratorium on capital punishment. "Human life is a gift from God," Mike Farmer, a former legislator and executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, said to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

State should curb death penalty costs, audit concludes
Saturday, December 20, 2003
The state could do more to control death penalty costs, even though some of its existing practices lessen the expense of capital murder trials, according to a state audit released Friday.

U.S. Supreme Court reviewing death penalty representation, appeals
Monday, December 8, 2003
The Supreme Court resumes its ongoing review of the death penalty today in a case that presents an unusually broad opportunity for reform.

Death penalty weighed for teen's killer
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
A federal jury adjourned Tuesday after nearly four hours of deliberating whether a Kansas man deserves to die for killing an Independence, Mo., teenager in 1998.

Supreme Court will review cases on death penalty
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
The Supreme Court picked a Pennsylvania shooting rampage case on Tuesday to settle whether dozens of old death sentences should be thrown out because of poorly written jury instructions.

Death penalty case strains Puerto Rico ties to U.S.
Monday, July 7, 2003
By all accounts, the crime was horrific. Kidnappers demanding a $1 million ransom killed and dismembered a suburban grocer in 1998 after his family alerted police.

Studies to probe death penalty
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Lawmakers have authorized three committee studies of the death penalty in Kansas to look at the cost and fairness of the state's capital punishment laws.

Lewis sentenced to 158 years for elderly couple's deaths
Friday, June 13, 2003
(Updated Wednesday at 4:41 a.m.) A man who has plead guilty to shooting and killing an elderly couple last summer in their east Lawrence home was sentenced Friday afternoon in Douglas County District Court to 158 years in prison. Damien Lewis, a 22-year-old parolee, pleaded guilty on March 14 to the crime and several others.

Bill would halt death penalty for two years
Tuesday, February 4, 2003
State lawmakers Monday opened up the politically explosive issue of the death penalty by introducing legislation that would impose a two-year moratorium on capital murder cases.

Capital case tab could top $1 million
Monday, February 3, 2003
George "Pete" Wallace and Wyona Chandlee paid for a criminal's greed with their lives.

Death penalty moratorium bill introduced in Kansas Senate
Monday, February 3, 2003
(Updated Monday at 11:26 a.m.) TOPEKA -- A bill that would impose a two-year moratorium on the death penalty and appoint a commission to study the state's capital murder law was placed Monday before the Legislature.

Kansans pay high price for death penalty, opponents say
Sunday, January 19, 2003
Death-penalty opponents in Kansas often have talked about the moral cost that society pays for condemning people to die. And they have an additional argument -- the economic costs.

Clemency grants ratchet up capital punishment debate
Monday, January 13, 2003
As Illinois begins emptying its death row by order of the governor, opponents of capital punishment are setting their sights on wider reforms, while death penalty supporters are questioning Gov. George Ryan's motives.

Death penalty opponents seek city commission's support
Tuesday, December 3, 2002
Death penalty law is made in Topeka and Washington, D.C., but opponents in Lawrence have set their sights on City Hall.