On Friday, January 19th, the state’s highest court rejected an appeal from a man convicted of capital murder, against the death penalty. Thirty-eight-year-old Kyle Flack was convicted in 2016 of the fatal shootings of four people in 2013 and given the death penalty for two of these killings. A jury in Franklin County heard the case after the bodies of 21-year-old Kaylie Bailey, 30-year-old Andrew Stout, and 31-year-old Steven White were found in a residence near Ottawa. The body of bailey’s 18-month-old daughter was discovered in a rural creek, hidden inside a suitcase. A motive for the killings was never given, and Flack did not testify in court.
In 2022, flack asked the Kansas supreme Court to overturn his death sentence and other convictions, based on questions about whether his right to remain silent had been invoked, if his attorney had been given enough time to prepare for the case and a constitutional challenge to the state’s death penalty, among other arguments.
Friday, the court affirmed Flack’s convictions on capital murder, first-degree murder, second-degree murder and criminal possession of a firearm. Justices rejected all of Flack’s claims, including his argument that he invoked his right to remain silent during an incriminating police interview. Judges also dismissed Flack’s constitutional challenge to the death penalty.
No one has been executed in Kansas since 1965, but Flack is one of nine men in the state on death row.
