The ACLU is mounting a major new effort to overturn Kansas’ death penalty, arguing it’s racially discriminatory and that, because of a landmark state Supreme Court decision upholding abortion rights, officials must clear a high legal bar to show capital sentences are constitutional.
The Sedgwick County murder case against Kyle Young, who is accused of a double killing in downtown Wichita on Jan. 2, 2020, has become ground zero in the death penalty abolition push. The American Civil Liberties Union has quietly filed an extensive legal briefing in the case, with numerous expert reports, attacking capital punishment as violating the Kansas Constitution.
Henderson Hill, senior counsel at the ACLU’s capital punishment project, said Kansans have a healthy skepticism of government that should extend to the death penalty.
