From [HERE] A Kansas capital defendant is challenging the prosecution’s decision to pursue the death penalty in his case, invoking a heightened standard of review the Kansas constitution applies to infringements of fundamental rights. 

The pretrial challenge, which will be the subject of a hearing in the Sedgwick County District Court beginning February 6, 2023, was filed by the ACLU in the case of Kyle Young, an African-American defendant who faces capital charges in a 2020 double murder at a Wichita hotel. The motion alleges that the Kansas death penalty violates state and federal prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment because it denies capital defendants a fair and impartial jury, is arbitrarily and discriminatorily applied, and serves no legitimate penological purpose. 

The Kansas Bill of Rights declares that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are “inalienable natural rights.” Young’s lawyers argue that a landmark 2019 Kansas Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights that applied a “strict scrutiny” standard of state constitutional review for laws that infringe on fundamental rights should apply to capital punishment. “For the very same reasons liberty applies to reproductive rights, life should apply to the death penalty,” said ACLU Capital Punishment Project senior counsel Henderson Hill. 

In 2022, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled in a different case that the death penalty, as written, did not violate the state constitution’s “inalienable” right to life. It held, “when a person is convicted of capital murder beyond reasonable doubt, he or she forfeits the inalienable right to life … and the state may impose lawful punishment for that crime.” Young, who has not been convicted and is presumed innocent, argues that he is entitled to the benefit of strict scrutiny review and that the death penalty is unconstitutional as it is applied in the state of Kansas.