Kansas 2025-2026 Regular Session

Kansas House Bill HB2272

Introduced
2/5/25  

Caption

Providing that no person shall be sentenced to death for crimes committed after July 1, 2025, and creating the crime of aggravated murder.

Summary

HB 2272 would end the use of capital punishment in Kansas for crimes committed on or after July 1, 2025. In place of the death penalty, the bill creates a new off-grid offense called aggravated murder and requires a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The bill also preserves the ability to seek and carry out death sentences for crimes committed before that date under existing law. The bill makes extensive conforming changes across the Kansas criminal code and related statutes. It updates homicide, attempt, sentencing, parole, expungement, offender registration, juvenile justice, child welfare, education licensing, adult care home and home health employment screening, and corrections reporting provisions to account for the new aggravated murder offense and the elimination of future death sentences. It also clarifies that aggravated murder is distinct from first-degree murder and that certain related offenses remain punishable separately.

Impact

HB 2272 would substantially revise Kansas criminal sentencing law by prospectively abolishing the death penalty and replacing it with life without parole for aggravated murder. It would reclassify aggravated murder as an off-grid person felony, adjust parole eligibility rules, and update multiple statutes that currently reference capital murder or death-penalty procedures. The bill also amends numerous collateral laws so that aggravated murder is treated similarly to other serious violent offenses for purposes of expungement, offender registration, juvenile proceedings, child custody and permanency decisions, and employment/licensing disqualifications in regulated care and education settings.

Sentiment

No committee transcript or recorded vote information was provided, so there is no direct evidence of floor or committee sentiment in the materials supplied. Based on the bill text alone, the measure appears to reflect a strong punitive alternative to the death penalty rather than a broad sentencing reduction, since it preserves severe punishment by creating an off-grid life-without-parole offense and making related procedural and collateral-law changes. The overall framing suggests an effort to replace capital punishment with a permanent incarceration penalty while maintaining public-safety protections.

Contention

The main policy issue is the elimination of the death penalty for future crimes, which is likely to be the central point of debate for supporters and opponents. Supporters would likely emphasize ending capital punishment prospectively while preserving a severe punishment for the most serious murders; opponents may object to abolishing the death penalty or to the breadth of the new aggravated murder category. Additional points of contention may include the bill’s extensive conforming amendments, especially those affecting juvenile justice, expungement limits, offender registration, and employment restrictions in sensitive occupations, because those changes expand the downstream consequences of an aggravated murder conviction and other listed offenses.

Companion Bills

No companion bills found.

Previously Filed As

KS HB2003

Establishing the veterans' valor property tax relief act providing for an income tax credit or refund for eligible individuals, modifying the definition of household income and increasing the appraised value threshold for eligibility of seniors and disabled veterans related to increased property tax claims and citing the section as the homeowners' property tax freeze program, providing property tax exemptions for certain personal property including watercraft, marine equipment, off-road vehicles, motorized bicycles and certain trailers, excluding internal revenue code section 1031 exchange transactions as indicators of fair market value, providing for certain exclusions from the prohibition of paying taxes under protest after a valuation notice appeal and providing four prior years' values on the annual valuation notice.

KS SB1

Modifying income tax rates for individuals, exempting all social security benefits from Kansas income tax, increasing the Kansas standard deduction and the Kansas personal exemption, increasing the income tax credit amount for household and dependent care expenses, decreasing the privilege tax normal tax, excluding internal revenue code section 1031 exchange transactions as indicators of fair market value for property tax valuation purposes, increasing the extent of property tax exemption for residential property from the statewide school levy, providing for certain transfers to the state school district finance fund and abolishing the local ad valorem tax reduction fund and the county and city revenue sharing fund.

KS SB2

Eliminating the income limit to qualify for the subtraction modification exempting social security benefits, increasing the income tax credit amount for household and dependent care expenses, establishing the veterans' valor property tax relief act providing for an income tax credit or refund for eligible individuals, citing the increased property tax homestead refund claim section as the homeowners' property tax freeze program, decreasing the normal privilege tax rate, increasing the extent of property tax exemption for residential property from the statewide school levy, decreasing the rate of ad valorem tax imposed by a school district; providing for certain transfers to the state school district finance fund, reducing the state rate of tax on sales of food and food ingredients and modifying the percent credited to the state highway fund from revenue collected.

KS HB2001

Authorizing the secretary of commerce to enter into agreements with major professional sports franchises to establish STAR bond projects for a major professional sports complex, providing for additional revenue sources, expanding the powers and discretion of the secretary and making other changes to the STAR bonds financing act to facilitate such projects, limiting the secretary’s authority to approve such projects to one year unless extended by the legislative coordinating council, authorizing the Kansas development finance authority to issue STAR bonds for such projects, transferring funds under certain circumstances from the state gaming revenues fund to the attracting professional sports to Kansas fund for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, and, if approved by the legislative coordinating council, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026.

KS SB6

Providing a sales tax exemption for sales of electricity to residential premises by municipally owned or operated utilities.

KS SB3

Clarifying the procedures and restrictions on accepting a nomination for an elected office.

KS SB7

Authorizing federally licensed firearm dealers, in addition to county sheriffs, to receive applications for concealed carry licenses and forward such applications to the attorney general, prohibiting sheriffs from assessing any fee related to application services and allowing dealers to assess a fee related to application services not to exceed $20.

KS SB8

Exempting the sale of firearms, firearms accessories, ammunition, firearm safes and firearm safety devices from the retatilers' sales tax.

KS HB2002

Expanding medical assistance eligibility and enacting the cutting healthcare costs for all Kansans act.

KS HB2004

Authorizing counties to propose an earnings tax for ballot question.

Similar Bills

No similar bills found.