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.
