Topeka ? The Kansas Supreme Court agreed Monday to stay its ruling that the state’s death penalty law was unconstitutional.

The decision means the law will remain in effect, and six men will remain under sentence of death, while Atty. Gen. Phill Kline pursues an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Friday, the Kansas court threw out the state’s death penalty statute based on what it said was flaws in how juries weighed evidence for and against death sentences. The court’s majority in the 4-3 decision said the law was weighted against defendants and must be rewritten by legislators.

Kline sought the stay shortly after the ruling, which invalidated the death sentences for the six convicted murders on Kansas’ death row. A seventh capital murder defendant, Gary W. Kleypas, had his sentence overturned in 2001 and was awaiting resentencing.

“Given the importance of this issue, we are pleased by the decision of the court to stay their ruling,” Kline said in a statement.

During an earlier interview, Kline said he hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would take up the case because even if the Legislature rewrites the law, it would not apply retroactively to Kleypas, the six men on death row and perhaps other defendants.

However, Kline and some legal scholars said Monday they were not sure that the U.S. Supreme Court would agree to review the case.

“It is a very narrow window,” Kline said. “I’m not certain they’ll accept the case.”

Johnson County Dist. Atty. Paul Morrison said he had expected a stay to be granted. Morrison prosecuted John R. Robinson Sr., who was sentenced to die for the murders of two women whose bodies were found in barrels in rural Linn County. Robinson also received a life sentence for killing a woman whose body was never found and pleaded guilty to killing five women in Missouri. He received a life sentence in that state as well.

Asked whether he thinks the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn the Kansas court’s ruling, Morrison said: “I think there’s a reasonable chance.”

The court ruled Friday in the appeal of Michael Marsh II of Wichita, who was sentenced to die for the June 1996 deaths of Marry Ane Pusch, 21, and Marry Elizabeth Pusch, who was 19 months old. The toddler died days after being seriously burned in a fire that destroyed the Pusch home. Her mother was shot to death.

The Kansas court did not explain its decision to issue a stay. Its ruling was a one-word notation, “Granted,” initialed by Justice Donald Allegrucci, on the request filed by Kline’s office. Allegrucci was a member of the court’s majority for Friday’s ruling.

Prominent legislators already have said they want to rewrite the capital punishment law during their 2005 session to fix the flaw identified by the court. Legislators convene Jan. 10.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman John Vratil said that while he wanted to proceed carefully “to make sure we don’t get it wrong,” he said he saw no reason to wait for a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

“This is something we know how to fix if we want to fix it,” he said.

Kansas law says that if the jury finds the arguments for and against putting a person to death about equal, the decision should favor the state, meaning the defendant would be sentenced to die.

Cornell University Law School’s Death Penalty Project, in Ithaca, N.Y., had told the Kansas court the state’s capital sentencing scheme was unique. Steve Garvey, a Cornell law professor who works with the project, said he would be surprised to see a U.S. Supreme Court review, because a decision would likely apply only to Kansas.

But, he acknowledged, “Capital cases are kind of unique. It’s a tough call.”

Kent Scheidegger, legal director for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a Sacramento, Calif., victims’ rights group that supports capital punishment, said the high court might be interested because multiple death sentences were at issue.

Scheidegger also questioned the Kansas court’s reason for invalidating the state statute, noting that jurors were unlikely to face an equal balance for and against death.

Kline said odds were against a U.S. Supreme Court review partly because of numbers. Typically, the court reviews 70 to 80 cases a year, with roughly 10,000 appeals submitted.