30 January 2010 :

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed SB 375 bill that would abolish the state's death penalty. By a vote of 7-4, the bill now goes to the full Senate for discussion. The bill would allow the abolition of the death penalty while also maintaining death sentences for those already sentenced to death and those who commit crimes of capital murder before July 1. It would create a new charge of "aggravated murder" that would carry a possible sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It also would prevent the governor from commuting sentences of life without parole and wouldn't allow release of terminally ill inmates sentenced to life without parole. No one has been executed in Kansas since the death penalty was reinstated in 1994. Ten inmates currently are on death row.