By:Baya Burgess
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Attorney General Kris Kobach on Tuesday urged the governor to deny clemency to Kansas inmates who have been sentenced to death.
Eight of nine people sentenced to death in Kansas formally filed clemency requests in May, according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office. Kobach urged Gov. Laura Kelly to reject them.
“Granting clemency to multiple death row inmates — particularly in the final weeks of a gubernatorial term and based on personal opposition to the death penalty — would substitute one person’s policy preference for the considered judgment of juries, judges, and appellate courts,” Kobach said in the release.
Kansas Reflector contacted Kelly’s communication office by phone and email, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
The state has not carried out an execution since 1965, a fact Kobach said illustrates the state’s strict and thorough standard for capital punishment.
Donna Schneweis, chair of the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, said the punishment is outdated.
“The Kansas death penalty is a failed experiment that does not reflect Kansans’ values today. No jury in Kansas has sentenced anyone to death for 10 years,” she said in an email.
According to the coalition, 15 people have been sentenced to death in Kansas since it was reinstated in 1994. Nine of them are still in prison under a death sentence, two died and four were resentenced to life.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, in a statement responding to Kobach, said clemency is crucial.
“The clemency process provides a second chance in a criminal legal system that has been shown to be overly punitive and devastating to families and communities,” the ACLU statement said. “This process includes careful consideration by the governor on a case by case basis.”
The organization recently challenged the death penalty in court.
Wyandotte County District Judge Bill Klapper dismissed the constitutional challenge in April 2025 on procedural grounds. But his opinion acknowledged witness testimony that the legal framework for selecting jurors was “so flawed that it does not protect racial biases in jury selection and must be reformed, a fact known to Kansans for years.”
Kobach, who held a news conference Tuesday in Wichita alongside law enforcement officials and victims’ family members, said the crimes justify the sentences. His news release named 24 people killed by the death row inmates.
“These clemency requests are an outrage to the victims of these killers and all Kansans,” Kobach said in the news release. “A jury sentenced them to death. I urge Gov. Kelly to reject clemency and deliver long-overdue justice for the families.”