Kansas Supreme Court

The Kansas Supreme Court was the state court that reviewed the convictions and appeals arising from the Clutter murders. Its decisions shaped the long interval between the trial and the executions of Perry Smith and Dick: it considered challenges to the fairness of their trial, denied habeas relief after a special hearing, and eventually set the final execution date.

Review of the Verdicts

The court was reviewing the verdict in Lowell Lee Andrews’s case when the first execution date set for Perry Smith and Dick, Friday, May 13, passed without action. The court had granted a stay while their lawyers pursued appeals for a new trial. This early intervention made the state court part of a process in which a death sentence could be delayed while the convictions remained under review.

A later challenge questioned whether Smith and Dick had received constitutionally adequate representation. After the Kansas State Bar Association appointed Russell Shultz to investigate their allegations and pursue habeas corpus if warranted, Shultz filed a petition in the Kansas Supreme Court. The court assigned retired justice Walter G. Thiele to conduct a full-scale hearing in Garden City, bringing the dispute back before the people whose conduct the petition had put at issue, including Judge Tate and defense attorneys Arthur Fleming and Harrison Smith.

Habeas Corpus Hearing and Ruling

Judge Thiele’s report found that Smith and Dick had received a constitutionally fair trial. The Kansas Supreme Court then denied the writ that sought to overturn their verdicts and set October 25, 1962, as a new execution date. The ruling followed a hearing focused on the defendants’ claims about their legal representation; it did not end the sequence of appeals that would continue to postpone the executions.

The case also remained connected to other capital proceedings in the state. While the court reviewed the Andrews verdict, the challenge to Smith and Dick’s trial returned its attention to Garden City nearly two years after the original proceedings. The separate review of Andrews’s case and the habeas petition therefore placed the court in the position of considering both the application of capital punishment and the procedural fairness of the trials that preceded it.

Appeals and Execution Dates

Further appeals carried the case through the federal courts. The lawyers for Smith and Dick brought it to the United States Supreme Court three times, but that Court refused to grant certiorari and did not hold a full hearing. In March 1965, after Smith and Dick had spent almost two thousand days in their Death Row cells, the Kansas Supreme Court ordered that they die between midnight and 2:00 a.m. on April 14.

The sequence shows the court’s practical authority over the state-level course of the sentences: it could grant a stay, hear a challenge to the convictions, deny a writ, and establish a new execution date. Those actions unfolded alongside, rather than in place of, federal appeals. The final date came only after repeated efforts to obtain further review had failed and the Kansas Supreme Court had fixed the time for the sentences to be carried out.