Supreme Court to take up death penalty law

May 31, 2005 | The Supreme Court said Tuesday it would consider reinstating a death penalty law that requires juries to sentence a defendant to die -- rather than serve life in prison -- when the evidence for and against imposing death appears equal.

Justices will hear arguments next fall in Kansas' appeal of a state Supreme Court ruling that found the law unconstitutional.

The 1994 law says if the evidence for and against imposing a sentence of death is equal, Kansas juries must choose death instead of life in prison.

The Kansas court ruling last December left the state without a capital punishment law and invalidated the death sentences of six convicted killers. The high court case involves Michael Marsh II, a Wichita man convicted of fatally shooting and stabbing a woman and setting a fire that killed the woman's toddler.

The Supreme Court will consider how juries weigh evidence for and against death sentences, as well as some technical issues, including whether it's proper for the Supreme Court to intervene.

When an entire state death penalty system is struck down, the court's going to pay attention, said Charles Hobson, an attorney with the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

The last executions in Kansas, by hanging, were in 1965.

The case is Kansas v. Marsh, 04-1170.

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