The Kansas City Star - December 22

Kansas continues review of death penalty law

By TONY RIZZO - 

In what could be a record deliberation, the Kansas Supreme Court has spent more than a year studying the first challenge to Kansas' death penalty law.

 Considering the life-and-death ramifications of the court's decision, along with the volume and the complexity of issues raised in the appeal, attorneys say they are not surprised it has taken so long.

 "Whatever they decide, it's going to be an exposition," said Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison.

 The court's seven justices heard oral arguments Dec. 7, 2000, in the case of Gary W. Kleypas, the first man in the state sentenced to die since Kansas reinstated capital punishment in 1994.