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Mark Your Calendar! It's five days to the start of Kansas' first domestic partner registry

Mark Your Calendar! It's five days to the start of Kansas' first domestic partner registry

At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 1, couples will gather at the Lawrence City Hall to become the first to register as domestic partners in the state of Kansas.

Registry will be done via computers in the City Commission room on the first floor. The fee is $75.

Now couples -- both same-sex and straight -- will be able to gain access to health insurance and other benefits already offered by their employers. This is just one of the advantages of being able to legally prove a domestic partner relationship.

Kudos and huzzahs to the Kansas Equality Coalition for winning approval of this important registry. The Equality Coalition has more detail on its web site.

Lawrence domestic partner registry prompts City Hall celebration

Lawrence domestic partner registry prompts City Hall celebration

[updated 5:50 p.m.]
Here are just some of the couples who registered today.

Top: Joyce Shontz and Danita Long have been a committed couple for 6 years. In the background are Tom Witt, state chair of the Kansas Equality Coalition, talking to a reporter. Tom is in the brown suit. Joyce, by the way, is a former president of her church board of directors. Danita teaches in the congregation's Sunday school.

Middle: Jessica Pierson, left, and Jen Humphrey, right, took some time off from work to register.

Bottom: Mike Silverman, left, and Dave Greenbaum, right, have been together for more than a decade.

Neither these photos or any of the others I've posted give a sense of the number of people who crammed into the room. The Equality Coalition had lined up four couples to register, but others kept coming.

Switching off the death penalty

By the Monitor's Editorial Board

This month, the Kansas Legislature is expected to begin hearings on a bill to repeal the death penalty. If the bill passes, Kansas will become the third state in three years to eliminate capital punishment – another encouraging milestone on the way to ending this practice in America.

Last March, New Mexico replaced the death penalty with a maximum sentence of life without parole, as did New Jersey in 2007. If Kansas follows, it will become the 16th state to forgo executions as a criminal justice tool.

The nation has been pulling back from sanctioned killing as a punishment for heinous crimes. In 2009, 106 people were handed death sentences – a record low since 1976, when the US Supreme Court upheld capital punishment.

Last year, the American Law Institute, which put in place the intellectual underpinnings of the modern capital justice system, abandoned its work in this field. The Supreme Court relied heavily on the institute’s framework when it decided to uphold capital punishment. But the institute has concluded that it’s not possible to ensure “a minimally adequate system for administering” the death penalty. A review for the institute cited many problems, including a lack of fairness.

Practical considerations are moving states – and juries – away from capital punishment. A big factor is cost, driven up by the lengthy appeals process and the expense of investigation and litigation when a life is at stake. Kansas estimates, for example, that the median cost of a death penalty case is 70 percent higher than for a murder case where the death penalty is not given.

Juries are also more cautious about mistaken convictions (139 people sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973). The Supreme Court, too, has narrowed the field of those who may be executed, eliminating juveniles and those diagnosed as mentally retarded. And the death penalty is not an effective deterrent against crime.

But the moral argument against capital punishment should not be forgotten. A government’s job is to preserve life, not compound a terrible wrong by taking another life. A death sentence cuts off the opportunity for redemption and leans on an outdated concept of justice based on revenge.

The practical concerns spurring the anti-death-penalty trend are important, but circumstances can change. The moral imperative does not.
 

Kansas could abolish death penalty to cut costs

By Erin Brown

The state budget crisis has forced Kansas legislators to re-evaluate state spending, leading some lawmakers to review the cost and effectiveness of the Kansas death penalty law.

The Kansas legislature is reviewing Senate Bills 208 and 375, both of which would abolish the death penalty in Kansas. Senate Bill 208 was introduced and debated last year, but no action was taken on the bill.

After three days of hearings, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider Senate Bill 375 Friday, Sen. Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence), said.

“The major concern that brought this topic up again was looking at the cost,” Francisco said. “Obviously we are in a tight budget situation.”

A death penalty prosecution can cost as much as a million dollars, she said, while a life sentence without parole could save taxpayers half a million dollars or more for each case.

According to Senate Bill 208, the median cost of a non-death-penalty murder case was approximately 70 percent less than the median cost of a death sentence.

Kansas re-enacted the death penalty in 1994, but has not carried out an execution since 1965, according to Senate Bill 375.

According to the National Center for State Courts’ website, Kansas has 10 inmates on death row. As the bill now stands, the abolishment of the death penalty, if passed, would not take effect until July 1, 2010.

Although Francisco is not a member of the Judiciary Committee, she said that she was glad the committee had decided to review the death penalty, and that she hoped to debate a bill in the full senate.

“I think senators feel this is a good time to engage again in this discussion and debate,” she said.

George Dungan, a senior from Lincoln, Neb. and vice-president of KU Young Democrats, said he was glad legislators had decided to debate the death penalty, especially during a time of economic instability for the state.

“In a time when Kansas is struggling to make ends meet, it seems absurd to continue an ineffective and expensive program, such as the death penalty,” he said.

Eric Foss, a senior from Overland Park and president of KU College Republicans, said his support for the death penalty hinged on the effectiveness of a state’s appeals process.

“For me, it’s not an argument of whether it is a more effective punishment,” he said. “We need to make sure we aren’t executing innocent people. That’s my primary concern.”

Foss said he thought it was possible the death penalty would end in Kansas.

“I think now, more than ever, because of budget constraints it is pretty likely that the decision to outlaw the death penalty may be made,” he said.

Kansas is one of 35 states with the death penalty, according to the National Center for State Courts. Fifteen states have abolished the death penalty, the most recent being New Mexico, which outlawed the death penalty last year.

Editorial: Kansas needs to repeal the death penalty law

By Caitlin Thornbrugh

With the majority of the nation looking to save even a few dollars, it is not a surprise that the state of Kansas is trying to economize a budget that is becoming more and more of a problem.

On Friday, a Senate committee will review a proposal to repeal the death penalty in Kansas. The Senate should vote in favor of the repeal, not only because it is a human rights issue, but because it will save the state a substantial amount of money.

During a budget crisis, even a traditionally conservative state should see the benefits of saving money from the proposed bill.

Today, The Kansan reported that Sen. Marci Franciso (D-Lawrence) said she thought the primary reason this topic was being discussed was because of the status of the budget. A death penalty prosecution can cost as much as a million dollars, she said, while a life sentence without parole could save taxpayers half a million dollars or more for each case.

According to Senate Bill 208 the average cost of a murder case without the death penalty sentence costs approximately 70 percent less than the average cost of a case that does have a death sentence. The misinformed argument that it is too expensive to impose life sentences without parole is false.

Kansas is one of 35 states that have a death penalty sentence for certain crimes. In Kansas, capital punishment has not been used once since its re-enactment 16 years ago. This lack of use is yet another reason to eliminate an unnecessary, money draining procedure.

Aside from monetary reasons, the death penalty also raises human rights questions. Capital punishment has a history of racism and execution of the innocent. These problems, along with fiscal motivations, establish a firm argument against the death penalty law.

The Senate committee will be making a fiscally responsible decision, as well as voting in favor of human rights, if it passes this bill to the full Senate. Students at the University, who are affected by the state budget, should contact their senators to support repealing the death penalty law.