TOPEKA — A bill requiring criminals convicted of serious felonies to be held in county jails rather than be released on bond while awaiting sentencing advanced Monday in the Kansas House on a preliminary vote.
Senate Bill 358 is a direct response to a Manhattan case in which a judge released a man convicted of 46 counts of sex crimes, and he “left the court through the same doors as the victims,” said Rep. Jesse Borjon, a Topeka Republican.
“As you can imagine, this creates a great deal of anxiety and fear for the victims,” he said. “This bill ensures that offenders convicted of serious crimes are remanded to custody.”
Wichita Democrat Rep. Abi Boatman and others agreed with the basis of the bill but raised concerns about the extent of felonies included, far more than sex crimes.
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Included in the bill are off-grid felonies, nondrug felonies with severity levels 1-4, and drug felonies with severity levels 1 or 2.
Boatman introduced an amendment to strike the drug offenses included in the bill. Rep. Dan Osman, an Overland Park Democrat, supported the amendment to eliminate drug crimes. He said the House Judiciary Committee only heard testimony on sex crimes.
“(The amendment) does eliminate some other categories of crimes that we heard no evidence about, no testimony about, no description of any problem about those sentencings,” said Rep. John Carmichael, a Wichita Democrat. “The problem was sex offenses.”
Carmichael also said the bill addresses a specific case with multiple victims and that the judge revoked bond the day after the trial ended.
“What engendered the bill in the first place was, as far as we can tell, a one-off situation, arguably a bad use of discretion by the judge involved, who corrected his error the next day,” Carmichael said. “If we need a bill, let’s limit it as to what the bill was about, and that was about sex offenses.”
Rep. Tobias Schlingensiepen, a Topeka Democrat, supported the amendment, saying he was concerned about costs to the counties.
“It costs about $150 a day to keep someone in county jail,” he said. “Multiply that by an average of 45 days. There’s definitely a cost to the taxpayer, and there is already a shortage of beds and facilities in Kansas. This would just exacerbate that problem.”
Boatman’s amendment failed with a vote of 84-33.
The bill’s fiscal note said that while it would require counties to hold more people in jail instead of releasing them on bond, “a precise fiscal effect cannot be estimated.”
A spokesman for the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office said it anticipated few impacts.
“In Sedgwick County, most individuals convicted of the severity-level felonies referenced in Senate Bill 358 are already ordered into custody at the time of conviction,” said Branden Stitt, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. “Because of that, they are typically already in our custody while awaiting sentencing. We do not anticipate this bill having an impact on our jail population or budget.”
SB 358 passed the Senate 40-0. If the House passes the bill on final action, it will go to Gov. Laura Kelly for consideration.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.
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