The real story of the death penalty in Kansas and Pennsylvania

I always appreciate reporting and analysis of the death penalty that moves beyond the usual (boring) rhetoric and looks at the reality of how the system gets applied in particular states.  And, helpfully, two new newspapers articles from Kansas and Pennsylvania fit this model.

From places in the heartland comes this piece, headlined “Ruling may void sentences,” which includes these notable real-world details of what’s the matter with Kansas:

A Kansas Supreme Court ruling that took the death penalty off the table for a Wichita man convicted of two murders could void the death sentences of three other Kansans, lawyers familiar with the law say….

Defense lawyers said the ruling demonstrates how the state’s death penalty law remains largely unsettled.  Two of 11 defendants sentenced to death are now off death row, and lawyers said the remaining nine cases contain issues that have yet to be resolved by the state Supreme Court.

Wichita lawyer Richard Ney, who has defended death penalty cases in several states, said the Kansas law remains largely untested by the courts. “There’s been a death penalty in Kansas for 15 years, and we haven’t gotten one case — not one single case — through the first level of appeals,” he said. “Not a single case has been affirmed by the Supreme Court of Kansas.”

Rebecca Woodman, a state public defender who handles death penalty appeals, agreed. “The reversal rate is 100 percent,” she said.

From the Keystone State comes this piece, headlined “Killers languish on Pennsylvania death row as appeals drag on, stats show,” which shows the Keystone cop quality of capital punishment in its lead:

Accused cop killer Richard Poplawski is more likely to die from cancer than lethal injection. At least that’s what statistics suggest.

Pennsylvania’s death row holds 224 convicted killers, the fourth-most in the country. Pennsylvania has executed only three killers since the death penalty returned in 1978 and none in the past decade. During that same period, 20 death row inmates have died of natural causes.

Gov. Ed Rendell said he would sign a death warrant “without a minute’s thought” if Poplawski, 22, of Stanton Heights is sent to death row for killing three Pittsburgh police officers April 4 outside his home.  But prosecutors have failed to get death sentences in the past three trials involving the slayings of police officers in Western Pennsylvania.