Kansas City Star Op-Ed Describes the Death Penalty as the ​“Ultimate Failed Big-Government Program” and Calls for Abolition

In an August 14, 2024 op-ed in The Kansas City Star, Carolyn McGinn, a Kansas State Senate Republican rep­re­sent­ing District 31, and Kelson Bohnet, a cap­i­tal pub­lic defend­er and board mem­ber for the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, argue that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem has failed, empha­siz­ing its cost­li­ness, lack of deter­rent effect, and inher­ent risk of ​“irrepara­ble harm,” and call for abo­li­tion dur­ing the next legislative session.

“July 1 marked 30 years of fail­ure,” they said. ​“If this were any oth­er pol­i­cy exper­i­ment, the death penal­ty would have been scrapped long ago. It is the ulti­mate failed big-gov­ern­ment pro­gram. Everyone from every polit­i­cal par­ty should agree that it’s time to move on and do things that actually work.” 

Since the state’s rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in 1994, mark­ing the start of its post-Furman era, only 15 men have been sen­tenced to death, with the most recent death sen­tence imposed in 2016, and none have been exe­cut­ed — the state last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 1965. According to DPIC’s Death Penalty Census data­base, which is updat­ed through January 1, 2022, two of these men have died on death row, four have been resen­tenced to life or less, and nine have active death sen­tences. The op-ed explains that none of these cas­es have com­plet­ed the first stage of state post-con­vic­tion review, and even if both state and fed­er­al post-con­vic­tion appeals were to be com­plet­ed, the state like­ly could not obtain the lethal injec­tion drugs nec­es­sary to car­ry out an exe­cu­tion as phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies have imposed restric­tions on use of their drugs. Meanwhile, the state’s pub­lic defend­er office ​“spends more than 12% of its bud­get on cap­i­tal cas­es, but those cas­es account for less than 0.1% of the system’s case­load,” and ​“a recent state-spe­cif­ic study found that pros­e­cu­tors and courts also bear sig­nif­i­cant addi­tion­al expens­es.” Instead of ​“this unnec­es­sary spend­ing,” the authors argue for a real­lo­ca­tion of funds towards vic­tims’ ser­vices and judi­cial reforms aimed at a ​“fair­er and more effi­cient” system. 

As it stands, ​“the pub­lic at large hasn’t ben­e­fit­ed” from the death penal­ty. The op-ed cites a lack of evi­dence to sup­port the death penal­ty as a deter­rent for mur­der in the state, con­clud­ing that “[s]ociety is no safer” than they would be with sen­tences of life with­out parole. Currently, vic­tims’ fam­i­lies must endure ​“decades of appeals and legal chal­lenges” rather than being pro­vid­ed ​“clo­sure avail­able through a speedy tri­al, appeal and life sen­tence with no release.” By retain­ing an irre­versible pun­ish­ment, the state also ​“risk[s] the irrepara­ble harm of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. … The moral harm that Kansans would suf­fer from a wrong­ful exe­cu­tion can­not be under­stat­ed,” write Senator McGinn and Mr. Bohnet. 

The state’s most recent leg­isla­tive ses­sion saw the bipar­ti­san intro­duc­tion of abo­li­tion bills in both cham­bers, with Senator McGinn among the spon­sors of abo­li­tion bill SB 211, but also the intro­duc­tion of a bill (SB 534) to autho­rize nitro­gen hypox­ia as an exe­cu­tion method by Attorney General Kris Kobach, who ​“framed this trou­bling pro­pos­al as Kansas need­ing to decide whether it actu­al­ly want­ed the death penal­ty.” The arti­cle recounts, ​“When faced with that deci­sion, two sep­a­rate com­mit­tees of elect­ed lead­ers refused to move the bill for­ward.” Although both abo­li­tion bills, HB 2349 and SB 211, also failed to pass, the authors rec­om­mend that leg­is­la­tors fol­low-through in the next legislative session. 

“A bipar­ti­san leg­isla­tive major­i­ty, along with Gov. Laura Kelly, is primed and ready to end this failed gov­ern­ment pro­gram,” con­cludes the op-ed. ​“Kansans should demand that mur­der­ers are pun­ished severe­ly but smart­ly through life with­out parole, and state House and Senate lead­er­ship should be brave enough to allow death penal­ty repeal to get a hear­ing and vote.”