Bill Summary – FastDemocracy

Division of the Budget
Landon State Office Building                                                                        Phone: (785) 296-2436
900 SW Jackson Street, Room 504                                                                     larry.campbell@ks.gov
Topeka, KS 66612                                Division of the Budget                             http://budget.kansas.gov
Larry L. Campbell, Director                                                                       Laura Kelly, Governor


                                                  February 13, 2019


         The Honorable Russell Jennings, Chairperson
         House Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice
         Statehouse, Room 151-S
         Topeka, Kansas 66612
         Dear Representative Jennings:
                   SUBJECT:       Fiscal Note for HB 2282 by Representative Schreiber, et al.
                 In accordance with KSA 75-3715a, the following fiscal note concerning HB 2282 is
         respectfully submitted to your committee.
                HB 2282 would abolish the death penalty for crimes committed on or after July 1, 2019.
         The bill would repeal the capital murder statute and create the new crime of aggravated murder,
         which would be an off-grid person felony. Offenders convicted of aggravated murder would be
         sentenced to imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole and would not be eligible for
         commutation of sentence, parole, probation, assignment to a community correctional services
         program, conditional release, post release supervision, functional incapacitation release, or
         suspension, modification, or reduction of sentence. The bill would also make several technical
         amendments.
                  The Office of Judicial Administration states enactment of HB 2282 would still require the
         courts to work through any existing death penalty cases committed before July 1, 2019. Judges
         and exempt non-judicial staff at both the district and appellate court levels work additional hours
         to address death penalty cases and, to some extent, have to delay hearing other cases. The Office
         states that there are currently two appellate research attorneys who devote a significant amount of
         time to death penalty cases. The Office indicates aggravated murder proceedings would be less
         lengthy than death penalty proceedings. However, a fiscal effect for the Judicial Branch cannot
         be estimated.
               If the death penalty were to be abolished under HB 2282, the State Board of Indigents’
         Defense Services estimates savings for the agency of approximately $765,000 from the State
         General Fund in FY 2020.
The Honorable Russell Jennings, Chairperson
Page 2—HB 2282

        The Office of the Attorney General estimates that the bill would cause the agency to incur
additional costs of approximately $375,000 from the State General Fund over the next two fiscal
years. The Office states that new legal arguments may be available to those offenders who were
sentenced to death for crimes committed before July 1, 2019. According to the Office, there are
ten offenders who are under the sentence of death. This could result in those offenders creating
additional legal actions, which would result in litigation costs of approximately $250,000 (10
offenders X $25,000 per case) for those cases. Also, the Office of the Attorney General anticipates
that the bill would generate at least one U.S. Supreme Court appeal, which would require additional
expenditures of approximately $125,000.
        The Kansas Sentencing Commission states that enactment of HB 2282 would have no
effect on prison admissions or beds. Unlike some other states, Kansas does not have specialized
separate holding facilities or a “death row” for offenders. Offenders who have been sentenced to
death are placed in administrative segregation, which is a custody setting that includes other
inmates. The Kansas Department of Corrections estimates enactment of HB 2282 would result in
a cost avoidance related to the acquisition of drugs necessary to carry out an execution; however,
the Department cannot estimate what the cost avoidance would be.
       The Kansas Department of Corrections states the current execution chamber is located at
the Lansing Correctional Facility and will be closed once the new Lansing facility opens in January
2020. Because the bill would not be retroactive, the Department states it would either keep the
execution chamber at Lansing, build a new structure at the El Dorado Correctional Facility
estimated to cost $493,000, or renovate existing space at El Dorado with an estimated cost of
$125,000. Any fiscal effect associated with HB 2282 is not reflected in The FY 2020 Governor’s
Budget Report.


                                                     Sincerely,

                                                     Larry L. Campbell
                                                     Director of the budget
Statutes affected: 
As introduced: 21-5301, 21-5402, 21-5419, 21-6328, 21-6614, 21-6618, 21-6620, 21-6622, 21-6628, 21-6629, 21-6806, 22-2512, 21-6301, 22-3717, 22-4902, 22-4906, 23-3222, 38-2255, 38-2271, 38-2266, 38-2303, 38-2312, 38-2365, 39-970, 39-2009, 65-5117, 72-2165, 75-52