Amy Renee Leiker
The Wichita Eagle
TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death sentence of Gary Kleypas, who raped and murdered a Pittsburg State University student at her home in 1996.
Kleypas, Kansas’ first death row inmate, had to be tried twice for the rape, torture and murder of 20-year-old Carrie Williams in March 1996. His first capital murder conviction and death sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2001.
Jurors handed down a second death sentence in 2008 after he was retried.
In a 166-page decision released Friday, the court said it found several errors – one of which required reversal of an attempted rape conviction – but that none warranted vacating Kleypas’ capital murder conviction or death sentence.
Friday’s ruling was written by Justice Marla Luckert. She is one of five Supreme Court justices seeking retention on Nov. 8.
Justice Lee Johnson dissented, saying the death penalty violated Kansas Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
The decision marks the third death sentence upheld by the court over the past year. It also has affirmed death sentences for Johnson County serial killer John Robinson Jr. – known for storing his victims’ bodies in barrels – and for Scott Cheever, who fatally shot Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid in 2005.
Also on Friday, the Supreme Court upheld capital murder and aggravated arson convictions – but vacated an attempted rape conviction – of Douglas Belt, who sexually assault and decapitated Wichita housekeeper Lucille Gallegos in 2002.
Because Belt died in prison in April before his appeal could be heard, the court looked only at issues that could lead to his exoneration. The court held that the attempted rape conviction and the sentence attached to it must be thrown out because it was multiplicitous with his capital murder conviction.
The Kansas state Legislature reinstated capital punishment, by lethal injection, in 1994.
No one has been executed in Kansas since 1965. Ten men currently are on death row.