In The Courts

Every person accused of a crime is entitled to a jury of their peers that represents a fair cross section of their community. But that is never the reality for Black and brown people facing the death penalty. A process called death qualification excludes people from capital juries if they do not believe in the death penalty. Death qualification rigs juries to be whiter and more likely to convict. It discriminates against Black prospective jurors, women, and people of individual faiths that oppose capital punishment.   Our fight against death qualification is just one piece of our upcoming challenge to Kansas’ use of the death penalty. The ACLU, together with the law firms Hogan Lovells and Ali & Lockwood, Democracy Forward, and the Kansas State Board of Indigents’ Defense Services’ Death Penalty Defense Unit is putting the death penalty on trial in Kansas in a series of hearings beginning in October.

Dodge City's (Kansas) at-large method of election for its city commission violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“VRA”) by diluting the political power of the city’s Latine community. The at-large method of election also violates the Fourteenth Amendment because it is operated with a discriminatory purpose.

If the death penalty is racist, arbitrary and serves no valid penological purpose, does it violate the Kansas Constitution? The ACLU, together with the ACLU of Kansas and law firm Hogan Lovells US LLP, challenged the Kansas death penalty statute under the Kansas Constitution and United States Constitution in the case of Kansas v. Kyle Young. Mr. Young is a Black man who faced a capital trial in Sedgwick County, Kansas. Prosecutors sought a death sentence. The Sedgwick County District Court held an unprecedented evidentiary hearing in February 2023.