WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Hundreds of Kansas inmates sentenced before new guidelines took effect in 1993 are serving prison terms that would have been much shorter under today’s law.
The Wichita Eagle reported that the news guidelines generally called for shorter sentences for property crimes and longer ones for crimes of violence.
The Kansas Legislature decided to apply the guidelines retroactively to more than 2,000 inmates who were serving time for relatively minor offenses. But more than 4,000 inmates convicted of more serious crimes were left to serve out their original sentences.
The sentencing guidelines law in effect created two classes of prison inmates. But the Kansas Supreme Court ruled in 1994 that it did not violate inmate’s rights.
Today, about 400 of those “old law” inmates remain behind bars.
