Topeka ? Legislators should wait for a potential U.S. Supreme Court decision before attempting to rewrite the state’s death penalty law, the parents of a capital murder victim said Monday.

Barbara and Duane Oblander, of Goddard, attended a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on a bill drafted in response to a Kansas Supreme Court decision in December that struck down the 1994 law. Atty. Gen. Phill Kline plans to appeal the ruling to the nation’s high court.

The Oblanders agreed with prosecutors who worry the U.S. Supreme Court won’t review the Kansas court’s decision if legislators rewrite the law.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision is the only way to reinstate death sentences for seven men, including Gavin Scott, convicted of capital murder for the 1996 shooting deaths of the Oblanders’ son, Doug Brittain, and his wife, Beth, in their rural Goddard home.

“In my mind, I think they should wait,” Duane Oblander said after the hearing. The couple did not testify.

In a 4-3 decision, the Kansas court said the state’s death penalty law was unconstitutional because of a provision on how juries weigh evidence for and against imposing a death sentence. The law says that if the evidence is about equal — which prosecutors contend will be rare — a jury must recommend death.

The court said a defendant should receive the benefit when the evidence is about equal.

Since then, prosecutors and lawmakers have debated how quickly legislators should respond.

Kline testified that legislative action would lessen the chances of the U.S. Supreme Court reviewing the ruling.

But, he said, if legislators wait and the U.S. Supreme Court declines to step in, prosecutors could lose the chance to seek death in some cases — including last week’s shooting of Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels.

Sen. Kay O’Connor, R-Olathe, said, “Oh, man, what a mess.”

Kline said he believed his office had at best a one in seven chance of having the case heard, then a 50-50 chance of prevailing.

But district attorneys Nola Foulston, of Sedgwick County, and Paul Morrison, of Johnson County, expressed more confidence the court would review the case and overturn the Kansas ruling.

“I think it’s an easy call for you to say, ‘Let’s wait on this,'” Morrison told the committee.

The committee plans further hearings today and Wednesday. It also is considering legislation to strengthen provisions against executing mentally retarded defendants, as well as a bill that would end capital punishment in Kansas.