photo by: Ashley Hocking

The Kansas Supreme Court listens to oral arguments at the Lied Center of Kansas on Monday, April 1, 2019. This was the court's first visit to Lawrence in its 158-year history.

An unusual opportunity to see the Kansas Supreme Court in action proved popular among Lawrence area residents.

Just over 800 people attended the court’s special session Monday night at the Lied Center, according to Lisa Taylor, the court’s public information director. She said the University of Kansas police department, which counted attendees as they passed through metal detectors to get in, provided an estimated crowd count of 806 after the event.

That’s a record number of people to attend such a Kansas Supreme Court special session outside the court’s usual chambers in Topeka, an outreach initiative the court has been doing statewide since 2011. Lawrence is the 17th place the court has held a session on the road.

“Previously the biggest crowd we had seen was about 700,” Taylor said. That was at Fort Hays State University in 2015.

In Lawrence, the full court heard oral arguments in two appeals cases: a Wyandotte County murder conviction and a Shawnee County civil case involving Topeka’s tobacco sales ordinance.

Justices will confer about the evidence and release the court’s opinions in the cases later.