Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline says he hates to handicap his chances in defending the state’s death penalty before the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 7, but he also can’t resist. He counts three of the nine justices as solidly anti-death penalty. And because Justice Sandra O’Connor will be on the bench to hear the case but likely will have retired by the time the decision is made (and incoming Justice Samuel Alito could not vote), he’s concerned it could be a 4-4 tie. “If it’s a tie, we lose unless they allow reargument,” Kline said Wednesday. And a loss not only would mean no execution for Wichitan Michael Marsh, whose sentence is on the line. It also would mean no executions for five others on Kansas’ death row, including the Carr brothers.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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34 Comments
Why no blog posting, and why only an “around the area” brief article in the Eagle about Kline’s endorsement by 89 Kansas sheriffs, including Sedgwick Couty Sheriff Gary Steed?
Why did the Kansas City Star (also a Knight-Ridder newspaper like the Eagle) also not report this story at all in their printed paper?
The Lawrence Journal-World reported this story: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/nov/22/kline_touts_sheriff_support_ag_race/?state_regional
The Capital Journal had a shorter story:http://www.cjonline.com/stories/112205/leg_kline.shtml
The Salina Journal had John Milburn’s AP story on p. A-4.
The Hutchinson News had a story explaining that the Remo County sheriff does believe in endorsements: http://www3.hutchnews.com/news/local/stories/sheriff112405.html
Why so little reporting by the Eagle — and why no blog item here — about Kline’s endorsement by the supermajority of Kansas sheriffs?
Is this another example of a biased Kansas press, or is there some other explanation?
Sorry about the missing “NOT”:
The Hutchinson News had a story explaining that the Remo County sheriff does NOT believe in endorsements: http://www3.hutchnews.com/news/local/stories/sheriff112405
Dear Executioner,
The tribe has spoken…get on with it.
You’ve got like your odds if Phill Kline’s Lawyer skills are between you and a lethal injection.
should have been “gotta”
It’s time to accept the fact that the death penalty is a failed social experiment. In the modern age there is no reason to kill people to say that killing is wrong. The possibility of wrongful executions (Missouri and Texas for example) and the racial bias of the system are just a few of it’s flaws.
Cost alone is a reason for abolition of the death penalty. New Jersey has just released a study showing the monetary waste of their system. In Kansas, a Legislative Post Audit report found that a death penalty case is 70% more expensive than a similar non death penalty case (and their is a strong argument that they under figured). It’s time to move on from this system. Lock them up, throw away the key, and spend the money where it can do some good instead.
Phill Cline needs to lighten up on his orthodox eye-for-an-eye views before it costs him an election and an innocent person their life. To moderate Republicans such as myself, he is viewed as a religious tyrant. The death penalty is expensive, is not a proven deterrent, and always holds the possibility that an innocent person will be killed for the revenge of others. That is not something that human beings should accept as justice.
Analyze this… Members of a civilized society not only have the right, but the responsibility to terminate the miserable lives of vicious, brutal murderers such as these. No cost is too high.
Hammertime: What if it were your child that had been wrongly accussed and wrongly convicted of a horrible crime? Would you then say “terminate” them?There are many people convicted that were not only not guilty, but were innocent. We are now hearing that there are at least several that were “terminated” and there is proof that they were probably not guilty.Once they’re “terminated” you can’t go back and say “oh, we made a mistake, sorry.” How would you feel if the government told you that after “terminating” your child?
Keep in mind that voters in Kansas have the ability to send a message in the event of a court decision they deeply disagree with. Kansas Supreme Court justices come up for a retention vote every 6 years. If a majority vote not to retain a justice, they are off the court.
The majority who voted to strike down the death penalty are Justices Allegruci, Luckert, Bier, and Gernon. Gernon is no longer on the court.
Midge, what if YOUR child had been robbed, raped, and murdered, along with all thier friends, by Reginald Carr? Would you at last admit that some people simply don’t deserve to live? Somehow, I doubt you’d be so forgiving.
Midge,
With all due respect, it’s pretty lame to propose allowing vicious, brutal murderers to live just because one might convict the wrong person. To personalize it using the anology of the wrongly accused being my kids, is really grasping for straws. Sheeze, give me a break.
How many innocent people are dying in Iraq right now in the name of freedom and democracy? Are you saying that we shouldn’t kill terrorist because we might kill the wrong person? Innocent people die all the time for the betterment of mankind- it goes with the territory.
Another point… with the all the advancement in DNA testing- proving guilt BEYOND a reasonable doubt, is virtually fool proof.
Sorry, I just don’t buy the worn out argument that it might be the wrong person, so we shouldn’t punish anyone.
Maybe you should to talk to some of the victims of these monsters.
Midge,
Face it, some people just ain’t no damn good!
Hammertime: Tell the man in Kansas City that has spent the last 8 years of his life in prison for being wrongly convicted of killing his wife because the lab messed up the DNA and tell his children that DNA testing is foolproof. Nothing is foolproof. If someone killed my child, I’d want to kill them myself. But, I wouldn’t because there is a line between being a killer and not being a killer. I won’t cross that line.
You’re both right.
Interesting that some can speak of death so freely. It smells of vigilantism. That was never a good way. In the past, society has been a lot freer in dispensing death. How about the Oxbow Incident? I imagine that most in that posse had decided that those men didn’t deserve to live. That wasn’t such a good decision, was it? How about the Rosenbergs (executed by the state for allegedly giving atomic bomb secrets to the Russians)?
As a society, we need to get over such archaic punishment and move on. There are horrendously brutal people out there in the world who don’t care about the lives of others. We need to be prepared for the possibility of the defense of our lives to the death. But we shouldn’t be as they are. When the deed is done and the criminal is captured, the place for them is in a prison, not to be put to death.
Midge/MR:
Stay tuned to Suddam Hussein’s trial. Let’s see how the new government in Iraq- supported by the USA, handles his sentence if he’s found guilty.
I just heard that the 1000th execution since the death penalty was reinstated in ‘76 will happen sometime this week. I can just see the banners and balloons tied to the gurney, and maybe the condemned could win a free headstone!
Jed
How many didn’t do it?
Hammertime
Is the USA next in the dock?
Ed,Have no idea, but probability suggests at least some.
Jed
Well, that’s one too many.
Everybody in prison is innocent. Just ask them.
Most civilized countries in the world don’t do capitol punishment. Good post, Moderate Republican.
Uuuhh, And the Carr Brothers don’t deserve it,—-Right?
Ed,Yup!
James, you’re kind of stuck on the Carr Bros, aint cha? I would imagine you claim to be pro life…..
Falcone, you could be totally, totally wrong. So, what’s your point?
Whadda ya think, Falcone? Think the Carr Boys deserve three hots and a cot and guaranteed protection, for the rest of their lives?
They should have been taken out and shot!
Absolutely, James. It is amazing to me that anybody gives executing scum like Reginald Carr and his poor idiot brother a second thought. It should have been done the day after they were convicted.
The issue is not whether those who deserve to die should, but those who don’t, but were convicted anyway, should also die.
The hell with the quilty, the sooner dead the better, but what about the innocent?
I don’t like the restrictions placed on the innocent going free.
That needs to be fixed.
What Ed said.There’s always a worst case, and Carrs are it. Yeah, I’m against capitol punishment, but I’m human and I admit I won’t loose a lot of sleep if the Carr brothers get offed. There’s an argument for putting mad dogs down. But it’s a fact that in America, you get the best justice money can buy (some other poster said that). There’s just too many cases where people on death row are being freed after new evidence proves them innocent. It’s also damned expensive to execute someone. It costs far more to perform an execution than to lock someone forever. That said, I think an arguement could be made for making prison a lot more unplesant so it’s not just “3 hots and a cot”. I didn’t think “Hard labor” was such a bad thing. Let’s bring back chain gangs and busting rocks.
Which of the 6 death row inmates do you think may be innocent? Any of them? Even one?
All six may be guilty of something, but maybe one or more aren’t guilty of capital murder. We know Marsh didn’t get a fair trial and even if the US Supreme Court says the DP statute is constitutional, he still gets a new trial. I predict the Carr brother’s will get new trials. The judge made a reversible error. He should never allowed the two to be tried together. They had adverse defenses. So, we know the county and state are going to have to spend more money on a new Marsh trial and probably have to spend more money on a new Carr trial, just because the judge’s didn’t follow the law. Look at what the system is doing to the victims families. It’s a shame.