Governor Andrew Shoeppel compiled this series of correspondence on capital punishment issues from letters received during 1943 and 1944. The State of Kansas executed fifteen men between 1944 and 1965. Two AWOL soldiers, George York and James Latham, who were hung on June 22, 1965, became the last murderers executed before the Supreme Court ruling of 1972 invalidated Kansas' death penalty. In 1976, the U. S. Supreme Court's Gregg vs. Georgia decision allowed states to pass new death penalty laws if they followed certain guidelines, and after much debate, this eventually led to the passage of the 1994 law which permits execution by lethal injection, which Governor Finney refused to sign. That death penalty law was rejected by the Kansas Supreme Court, but then upheld in 2006 by a 5 to 4 vote of the U. S. Supreme Court. Although 11 men have received the death sentence since the new law was passed, none have actually been executed at this time.

Creator: Kansas. Governor (1943-1947 : Schoeppel)
Date: 1943-1944