District Attorney Nola Foulston announces that she
will seek immediate review by the United States Supreme Court of today’s
decision by the Kansas Supreme Court striking down the state’s death penalty
law as unconstitutional. “This
is an enormously significant decision that, unless overturned by the United
States Supreme Court, will invalidate every death sentence given in Kansas,”
stated Foulston.
Issuing its opinion in the Sedgwick County double homicide case,
State
v. Michael Marsh, The Kansas Supreme Court declared that the express
language of the death penalty statute, K.S.A. 21-4624,
“was clearly intended to mandate the imposition of a death sentence
when the existence of aggravating circumstances was not outweighed by any
mitigating circumstances” rather than calling for a death sentence when
aggravating circumstances outweighed mitigating circumstances, and therefore
is unconstitutional on its face. Such
a judgment will invalidate all death sentences given in Kansas under the law
that was enacted in 1994, including those imposed against brothers Reginald
and Jonathan Carr, Douglas Belt who was recently convicted of the murder and
decapitation of Lucille Gallegos, Gavin Scott who murdered Douglas and
Elizabeth Brittain while they slept in their rural Goddard home and Johnson
County resident John Robinson who was convicted of murdering several women in
Kansas and is accused of killing others in Missouri. Marsh was convicted of
the 1996 murders of Marry Ane Pusch and her infant daughter, Marry Elizabeth
Pusch.
In so doing, Kansas Supreme Court justices Allegrucci, Luckert, Gernon and
Beier overturned the Court’s own 2001 ruling in State v. Kleypas that
found the death penalty law unconstitutional but held that the law could be
constitutionally applied if jurors were properly instructed on weighing the
aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Justice Davis, joined by Chief
Justice McFarland and Justice Nuss, filed a dissenting opinion.
Prosecutors throughout the State have relied on the
Kleypas
opinion
in pursuing capital murder cases and all juries considering
death verdicts since Kleypas have been properly instructed to apply the
law in a constitutionally sound manner.
Working
in cooperation and coordination with Attorney General Phill Kline and his
staff, District Attorney Foulston will act immediately to take all necessary
legal steps to protect the validity of existing death sentences in Sedgwick
County cases and throughout the state.
