OP-EDS: ​“Kansas pre­tends its cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem is working”

Mike Hendricks, columnist for the Kansas City Star, recently described how the state goes through the motions of having a death penalty, but with no immediate prospect of its use after 16 years. Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994; eight years ago, the Lansing Correctional Facility held an open house for the media, showcasing its new death chamber. The room was then sealed and has remained untouched. Ten prisoners await execution, one of whom has been on death row for thirteen years. “No one that I’m aware of is even close,” said Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Miskell. Hendricks wrote: “Wouldn’t sentencing the worst killers to life without chance of parole be a whole lot cheaper, simpler and - given the cold-blooded nature of state executions - more morally acceptable?” A bill to abolish the death penalty is currently before the legislature. Read full text below.

Kansas pretends its capital punishment system is working

The macabre open house was held specially for the media.

Photographers shot pictures for their files as reporters scribbled notes.

On where the 13 witnesses would sit. On how the curtains would open in the observation rooms.

On what the process would be when the first condemned man was led into the new suite of rooms on the fourth floor at the Lansing Correctional Facility.

And how, in daytime, the sunlight streaming through the glass block wall cast a soft glow on the gurney where the state of Kansas would carry out its first execution by lethal injection.

That was eight years ago. Soon after the crowd dispersed, authorities closed the new death chamber as one would a time capsule.

“For all intents and purposes, we sealed the area,” Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Miskell said.

No one ever goes in? I asked.

Occasionally, Miskell said, to check for a leaking pipe or some other ailment that might befall any building.

Otherwise, it’s remained untouched since then, even as 10 men await execution. Thirteen years for one of them.

And yet.

“No one that I’m aware of is even close,” Miskell said when I asked when we might expect Kansas to carry out its first execution of any kind since 1965, and the first by lethal injection since capital punishment was reinstated in 1994.

“It all depends on when an inmate has exhausted all his appeals,” he said.

Officials haven’t even begun to select or train prison personnel who might be called upon to perform the deed. Pick someone now, and he might well quit or retire before his services are needed.

“We’re talking years, probably many years - if then,” said Topeka defense lawyer Rebecca Woodman, who handles appeals in capital murder cases.

Considering the lengthy appeals process, why does Kansas bother having a death penalty?

Wouldn’t sentencing the worst killers to life without chance of parole be a whole lot cheaper, simpler and - given the cold-blooded nature of state executions - more morally acceptable?

They’re set to debate that very question soon in the Kansas Senate while considering a bill to repeal the state’s 16-year-old death penalty statute.

Don’t expect anything to come of it.

Rather than do the sensible thing, the Republican majority in the Legislature and the Democratic governor (who wrote the current law while serving in Senate) would sooner pretend that the current system works.

And maybe it does - but only in theory.

(M. Hendricks, “Kansas pretends its capital punishment system is working,” Kansas City Star, February 9, 2010). See Time on Death Row and Recent Legislative Activity.