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Opponents of Kansas Death Penalty Pushing Repeal Bill

Floyd Bledsoe addressing a rally at the Kansas Statehouse (Photo credit: Jim McLean)
Floyd Bledsoe addressing a rally at the Kansas Statehouse (Photo credit: Jim McLean)

A bipartisan group of legislators is co-sponsoring a bill to repeal Kansas’s death penalty law. Several of them – both Democrats and Republicans – spoke today (THUR) at a Statehouse rally that also featured Floyd Bledsoe. Bledsoe spent 16 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Freed in December with the help of DNA evidence, Bledsoe says he’s living proof that the justice system makes mistakes...and he says the state can’t afford to make mistakes in death penalty cases.


Representative Steven Becker, a Buhler Republican, says he believes death penalty opponents have the votes to pass the repeal bill in the House. But he says the Republican leaders who control the calendar are trying to keep the bill from coming to a vote.

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This story was contributed by Jim McLean of the KHI News Service

Jim McLean, Executive Editor of KHI News Service, oversees the KHI News Service. From 2005 until 2013, McLean coordinated all communications activities at KHI as Vice President for Public Affairs. The position he now occupies was created as part of a strategic initiative to solidify the editorial and operational independence of the KHI News Service. Prior to coming to KHI, McLean had a distinguished career as a journalist, serving as the news director and Statehouse bureau chief for Kansas Public Radio and a managing editor for the Topeka Capital-Journal. During his more than 20 years in Kansas journalism, McLean won numerous awards for journalistic excellence from the Kansas Press Association, regional chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Kansas Association of Broadcasters. In 1997, McLean and two Capital-Journal colleagues received the Burton W. Marvin News Enterprise Award from the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism for a series of stories on the state’s business climate. McLean holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Washburn University.