Yes, Kansas still has the death penalty. Capital punishment remains on the books under a 1994 law that makes capital murder the only death-eligible offense, but the state has not carried out an execution since 1965, and no one sentenced under the current statute has been put to death. Nine people are currently under a death sentence.
Since the 1994 law took effect, fifteen people have been sentenced to death in Kansas. Six of those sentences were later overturned on appeal or vacated. The last executions in the state were of two soldiers put to death in June 1965 for a murder committed during a cross-country killing spree.
What Crimes Can Get a Death Sentence
Only capital murder is death-eligible in Kansas. First-degree murder, no matter how violent, is not. Capital murder is defined as an intentional, premeditated killing that falls into one of seven specific categories:1FindLaw. Kansas Code 21-5401 – Capital Murder
- Intentionally killing the victim during a kidnapping committed for ransom.
- Killing under an agreement to kill, or being a party to such an agreement (contract killing).
- Killing someone while confined in a state prison, community correctional facility, or jail, or while in the custody of a correctional officer.
- Killing the victim during or after a rape or criminal sodomy, or an attempt of either.
- Intentionally killing a law enforcement officer.
- Killing more than one person in the same act, related acts, or a common scheme.
- Killing a child under 14 during a kidnapping committed with the intent to commit a sex offense against the child.
If a defendant is convicted of capital murder but the prosecution does not seek or win a death sentence, the default punishment is life in prison without the possibility of parole.2FindLaw. Kansas Code 21-6620 – Sentencing to Life Without Parole
How a Death Sentence Is Imposed
A capital murder conviction does not automatically produce a death sentence. The prosecution must first file a motion asking for one. If it does, the trial judge then holds a separate sentencing proceeding in front of the same jury that returned the guilty verdict.3Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 21-6617
At that proceeding, the prosecution must prove at least one statutory aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt. The list includes a prior felony involving serious bodily harm or death, knowingly creating a great risk of death to more than one person, killing for money, hiring someone else to kill, killing to avoid arrest or prosecution, carrying out the crime in an especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel manner, committing the crime while serving a felony sentence, and killing the victim because of the victim’s role as a witness in a criminal case.4Justia Law. Kansas Code 21-6624 – Aggravating Circumstances
The defense then presents mitigating circumstances: reasons to spare the defendant’s life. The statute lists several, such as the absence of significant criminal history, extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the crime, or a relatively minor role in it, but the jury is not confined to that list and may consider anything the defense raises.5Justia Law. Kansas Code 21-6625 – Mitigating Circumstances
A death sentence requires the jury, unanimously, to find that the aggravating circumstances exist and are not outweighed by any mitigating ones. If even one juror disagrees, or if the jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict after reasonable deliberation, the judge imposes life without parole instead. Any doubt defaults to a life sentence.
Who Cannot Be Sentenced to Death
Two categories of defendants are off-limits regardless of what Kansas law says. The U.S. Supreme Court held in Roper v. Simmons that the Eighth Amendment forbids executing anyone who committed the crime before turning 18.6Justia. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) In Atkins v. Virginia, the Court held that executing a person with an intellectual disability is also unconstitutional, leaving states to set the procedures for determining disability.7Justia. Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002)
Method and Where Inmates Are Held
Lethal injection is the only authorized execution method in Kansas. The secretary of corrections selects the substances, which must cause death “in a swift and humane manner,” and the secretary of health and environment must certify them before use. The identities of executioners and anyone assisting are confidential by statute.8Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 22-4001 – Death Penalty, How Executed
Death-sentenced inmates are housed at the El Dorado Correctional Facility. Kansas does not operate a separate death row unit. The execution chamber itself is at Lansing Correctional Facility, where inmates would be transferred if an execution were scheduled. Because none has been carried out under the current law, those procedures have never actually been activated.
Why There Have Been No Executions
The statute has been tested in court and survived. In 2004, the Kansas Supreme Court struck down the sentencing provision as unconstitutional, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that ruling in Kansas v. Marsh in 2006 and upheld the law.9Legal Information Institute. Kansas v. Marsh One practical effect of Marsh: when aggravating and mitigating evidence is in equipoise, Kansas juries are permitted to return a death sentence rather than being required to choose life.
Efforts to repeal capital punishment have come up repeatedly in the legislature without passing. The most recent, Senate Bill 211, was introduced in February 2023 and would have abolished the death penalty while creating a new crime of “aggravated murder” punishable by life without parole. The bill was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee and died there in April 2024 without a floor vote.10Kansas State Legislature. SB 211
Cost is a recurring part of the debate. A 2014 report by the Kansas Judicial Council’s Death Penalty Advisory Committee found that defense costs in capital trials averaged about $396,000 per case, compared with roughly $99,000 for first-degree murder cases where the death penalty was not sought. Housing a death-sentenced inmate cost about $49,400 per year, versus $24,700 for a prisoner in the general population. Kansas Supreme Court justices estimated they spent twenty times more hours on death penalty appeals than on non-capital ones. Those numbers help explain why, in a state that has not executed anyone in six decades, whether to keep the death penalty on the books remains an active political question.