25 years ago: Kansas House passes death-penalty bill

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Jan. 30, 1987:

After eight hours of heated debate on the floor, the Kansas House today passed a bill that would make death by lethal injection a possible sentence for people convicted of premeditated murder. The measure advanced to the Senate on a vote of 71-53. Gov. Mike Hayden had already vowed to sign any “properly worded” death penalty bill that arrived at his desk, and he spoke of his expectation that the Senate would pass the proposal without much delay. Kansas had had no death penalty from 1870 to the “lawless years” of the mid-1930s, when hanging had been legally instituted, but the Kansas law had been invalidated along with those of all other states by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973. In the 126 years since statehood, Kansas had legally executed 24 men.