ACLU Supporter –

Today we're in court for an unprecedented evidentiary hearing challenging the death penalty in Kansas v. Kyle Young, a case about a Black man facing the death sentence in Sedgwick County, Kansas. Our question for the court: If the death penalty is racist, arbitrary, and doesn't make Kansans safe, does it violate the Kansas constitution?

Working with the ACLU of Kansas, Ali & Lockwood, Hogan Lovells US LLP, and the Death Penalty Defense Unit, we'll present groundbreaking evidence showing how the death penalty in our state violates the state and federal constitution in three major ways:

• The jury selection process, known as death qualification, skews toward white-washed and biased capital juries more likely to convict. It's a violation of the fundamental right to a fair and impartial jury.
• The arbitrary and discriminatory imposition of the death penalty violates the prohibition on cruel or unusual punishment. In Kansas, death sentences are exceedingly rare, with the vast majority of counties never even seeking or imposing death. But where someone has been sentenced to death, we see extreme historical examples and troubling current patterns of racial bias and discrimination.
• The death penalty fails to deter crime but remains extremely costly. And with the persistent likelihood of executing innocent people, it's fundamentally irrational for the state to have this ultimate power, and it fails to pass constitutional scrutiny.

The hearing begins today at the Sedgwick County District Court and will continue for the next few days. No matter what, we at the ACLU will continue to fight until the death penalty is abolished once and for all.

Thanks for your support,

Bria Nelson
Pronouns: They, them, theirs
Legal Fellow, ACLU of Kansas