Senate committee considers death penalty bills

John E. Robinson Sr. and Gary Kleypas are two of 10 men waiting to die as they sit in their cells on Kansas’ “death row” at the El Dorado Correctional Facility.

In Topeka, Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park, chair of the Senate Judicial Committee, has been conducting hearings as the committee reviews two bills pertaining to the state’s death penalty law, which was re-enacted in 1994 and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003.

Since the law’s reinstatement, no Kansas inmate has been executed.

The bills being considered are SB 208 and SB 375.

Last week, the committee conducted a series of hearings and listened to testimony from those who oppose the death penalty and those who support it, including the parents of Kelsey Smith, the Overland Park teen who was kidnapped from a Target store parking lot and murdered by Edwin R. Hall in 2007.

Hall was charged with capital murder but escaped the death penalty when he pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

Smith’s father, Greg, told the committee that the death penalty needed to remain in force.

Owens said he anticipated his committee to work the legislation on Jan. 29.

“I thought the hearings went well,” Owens said. “We had a total of 20 to 25 people testify and I thought people from both sides of the issue presented themselves and their side of the issue well. There are a large number of people out there, they may not be the majority of people in the state, but there are large groups of folks who are anti-death penalty, the Catholic Church being one of them.
And internationally, the United States is in the minority as far as countries that support the death penalty. (Last week) Mongolia even outlawed it.

“There are people on both sides of this issue, and that’s why I think it’s important, no matter which side brings it up, (the death penalty) needs to be reviewed periodically. And that’s our job because it is a public policy issue and that’s what the Legislature is about.”

Owens said although the possibility exists that the state’s death penalty law could be abolished, he thinks the probability of that happening is low. Owens said he favors SB 375, which unlike SB 208, does not eliminate the death penalty.

“I tend to like the one the Judicial Council came up with because it eliminates a whole bunch of questions, particularly in constitutionality,” he said. “Bill 208 eliminates the death penalty but the other one is more of a hybrid and answers some of the questions that are very difficult.”

Bill 208 came out of committee on a 6-5 vote last session and went to the Senate floor, where it was debated for more than 3½ hours.

“There was this big debate with a lot more questions than answers, so I asked the president to send it back to the committee, which he did, and then over the summer I asked the Judicial Council to review it and have some experts take a look at it,” Owens said. “They gave us a report and so now we’re looking at bill 208 but we’re also looking at bill 375, which is the new bill that incorporates the recommendations from the Judicial Council.

“My gut feeling is that (SB) 375 will be the bill to come out of the committee because it answers all the questions that were brought up on the floor last year.”

There is no official death row facility in Kansas. When inmates are sentenced to death they are held in administrative segregation facilities at El Dorado near Wichita and then transported to Lansing to carry out the sentence.

Robinson was tried and convicted in Johnson County of capital murder in the deaths of Izabel Lewicka and Suzette Trouten and of first-degree murder in the case of Lisa Stasi, who disappeared in 1985 and was never found.

Kleypas was convicted in Crawford County for the 1996 rape-murder of Carrie Williams, a Johnson County girl who was a student at Pittsburg State University. His original sentence was overturned in 2001. His new sentencing trial took place in Wyandotte County in 2008 where he was again sentenced to death.

Others sentenced to death are:

Gavin Scott, convicted of the murders of Doug and Beth Brittain in 1996 in Sedgwick County;

Reginald Carr, convicted of capital murder in Sedgwick County for the deaths of Jason Befort, Brad Heyka, Heather Muller and Aaron Sander and of first-degree murder for the death of Ann Walenta;

Jonathan Carr, convicted of the same five murders as his older brother Reginald;

Douglas Belt, convicted in 2005 of one count of capital murder, attempted rape and aggravated arson in the death of Lucille Gallegos in Sedgwick County;

Phillip Cheatham, convicted in 2005 in Shawnee County of one count of capital murder, two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder in the deaths of Gloria Jones and Annette Roberts. A third victim, Anneta Thomas, played dead and survived with 19 gunshot wounds;

Sidney Gleason, convicted in 2006 in Barton County in the shooting deaths of Miki Martinez and Darren Wormkey in 2004;

Scott Cheever, convicted in 2007 in Sedgwick County for the murder of Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Sameuels in 2005; and

Justin Thurber, convicted in 2009 in Cowley County for the 2007 murder of 19-year-old student Jodi Sanderholm.

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