Illinois
Ex-deputy who shot Sonya Massey is denied a request for medical release from prison
CHICAGO (AP) — A former Illinois sheriff’s deputy won’t get an early medical release from his two-decade prison sentence for killing Sonya Massey inside her home after the Black woman called 911 about a possible prowler, state officials decided Friday.
Sean Grayson had been diagnosed with colon cancer prior to the 2024 shooting, and his attorney noted in January that the cancer had advanced to his liver and lungs.
The three-member Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted unanimously Friday to deny Grayson’s application for early medical release, Liz Mitchell, a board spokesperson, said in an email.
Grayson, who is white, was convicted in October of second-degree murder for Massey’s killing, a case that sparked protests over systemic racism and a U.S. Department of Justice review.
Body camera footage showed Grayson and another deputy enter Massey’s home in Springfield, Illinois. Minutes later, Grayson shot the 36-year-old single mother in the face as she moved a pot of hot water from the stove and told him, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
Grayson was given the maximum possible sentence.
He filed for early release from prison in May, six months into his sentence, according to a copy of his application published by Capitol News Illinois. Grayson apologized for Massey’s death at his January sentencing but in the release application wrote she had “attacked me with a pot of boiling water.”
Daniel Fultz, an attorney who has represented Grayson, declined to comment Friday.
In a letter to the board opposing Grayson’s release, Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser said the former deputy’s medical condition was already considered at sentencing.
“To release Grayson under these circumstances would be a miscarriage of justice,” he wrote, “and an insult to Sonya Massey’s memory and family.”
Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, attorneys representing Massey’s family, said Friday that the board “made the right decision.”
“Today the board recognized what this family has said from the start,” they said in a statement. “No one is above accountability, and a badge does not provide an early way out.”
Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement that Illinois law requires the Prisoner Review Board to consider medical release requests. He called Massey’s killing “a profound loss.”
“Sonya was innocent, unarmed, and calling law enforcement for help,” he said. “It was a painful reminder that too many innocent Black Americans have faced this kind of violence — and they deserve justice.”
Kansas
Republicans want voters to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices and move court to the right
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas voters will decide Tuesday whether to elect state Supreme Court justices rather than have the governor appoint them, a push from conservatives who have chafed for years over court decisions they disagreed with on issues such as abortion, school funding and the death penalty.
If the constitutional amendment passes, supporters hope to elect at least four conservative, anti-abortion justices to the seven-member court by 2033.
Kansas is considering the change amid concerns that increasingly contentious and expensive judicial elections in other states are making their courts more partisan and less independent. Spending in a single state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin last year topped $100 million.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a term-limited Democrat who opposes the measure, said gerrymandering and dark money have put the Legislature out of step with the state and, “to think you can make the judicial branch a part of that dysfunctional system is frightening.”
GOP lawmakers cite multiple rulings by Kansas courts over the past two decades as reasons for change.
Most recently, a district court judge earlier this month reinstated a three-day grace period for voters to return mail ballots after Election Day, which GOP lawmakers had eliminated. Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, seeking the Republican nomination for governor, called the decision “outrageous” and urged people to vote yes on the ballot question.
The same judge — a finalist to fill the most recent Supreme Court vacancy — blocked enforcement of a 2025 law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Masterson described him as “radical.”
The list of rulings Republicans criticize also includes rulings on education funding back to 2004. Supreme Court decisions forced lawmakers to increase funding to comply with the state constitution.
Electing state Supreme Court justices gained currency among Republicans after a 2022 public vote affirming the high court’s landmark 2019 decision that Kansas’ bill of rights guarantees bodily autonomy and access to abortion. Total spending by both sides has exceeded $12 million.
Legislators who worked to overturn the Supreme Court’s protections, including Masterson, helped write this year’s proposal.
Seven weeks after that 2022 vote, Attorney General Kris Kobach, then a GOP candidate for the office, told a Republican club in Wichita that electing justices would “slowly and quietly” put anti-abortion justices on the high court.
The vote-yes campaign’s biggest donor — providing $1.7 million toward the campaign’s $3.7 million in spending — is a Nashville-based nonprofit that supports Republican candidates, groups and causes. Kansans for Life, the state’s most influential anti-abortion group, has spent at least $87,000 over the past 11 days on mailers and texts.
Meanwhile, the national and state affiliates for abortion provider Planned Parenthood contributed another $1.6 million toward the vote-no campaign’s $8 million-plus in spending.
Backers of the Kansas proposal brush aside arguments that electing the justices will give wealthy donors control over the Supreme Court.
Twenty-two states elect their top court’s judges, eight in partisan races. Governors in 26 states appoint them. In South Carolina and Virginia, legislators pick the justices.
Kansas elected justices for nearly 100 years before voters amended the state constitution in 1958. The governor now picks one of three finalists named by a nominating commission controlled by attorneys. Legislators have no role.
A review of every state’s current and past constitutions shows that the last state to add an amendment like the one Kansas is contemplating was Mississippi in 1914. Since then, 18 states’ amendments went the opposite way.
Ex-deputy who shot Sonya Massey is denied a request for medical release from prison
CHICAGO (AP) — A former Illinois sheriff’s deputy won’t get an early medical release from his two-decade prison sentence for killing Sonya Massey inside her home after the Black woman called 911 about a possible prowler, state officials decided Friday.
Sean Grayson had been diagnosed with colon cancer prior to the 2024 shooting, and his attorney noted in January that the cancer had advanced to his liver and lungs.
The three-member Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted unanimously Friday to deny Grayson’s application for early medical release, Liz Mitchell, a board spokesperson, said in an email.
Grayson, who is white, was convicted in October of second-degree murder for Massey’s killing, a case that sparked protests over systemic racism and a U.S. Department of Justice review.
Body camera footage showed Grayson and another deputy enter Massey’s home in Springfield, Illinois. Minutes later, Grayson shot the 36-year-old single mother in the face as she moved a pot of hot water from the stove and told him, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
Grayson was given the maximum possible sentence.
He filed for early release from prison in May, six months into his sentence, according to a copy of his application published by Capitol News Illinois. Grayson apologized for Massey’s death at his January sentencing but in the release application wrote she had “attacked me with a pot of boiling water.”
Daniel Fultz, an attorney who has represented Grayson, declined to comment Friday.
In a letter to the board opposing Grayson’s release, Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser said the former deputy’s medical condition was already considered at sentencing.
“To release Grayson under these circumstances would be a miscarriage of justice,” he wrote, “and an insult to Sonya Massey’s memory and family.”
Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, attorneys representing Massey’s family, said Friday that the board “made the right decision.”
“Today the board recognized what this family has said from the start,” they said in a statement. “No one is above accountability, and a badge does not provide an early way out.”
Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement that Illinois law requires the Prisoner Review Board to consider medical release requests. He called Massey’s killing “a profound loss.”
“Sonya was innocent, unarmed, and calling law enforcement for help,” he said. “It was a painful reminder that too many innocent Black Americans have faced this kind of violence — and they deserve justice.”
Kansas
Republicans want voters to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices and move court to the right
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas voters will decide Tuesday whether to elect state Supreme Court justices rather than have the governor appoint them, a push from conservatives who have chafed for years over court decisions they disagreed with on issues such as abortion, school funding and the death penalty.
If the constitutional amendment passes, supporters hope to elect at least four conservative, anti-abortion justices to the seven-member court by 2033.
Kansas is considering the change amid concerns that increasingly contentious and expensive judicial elections in other states are making their courts more partisan and less independent. Spending in a single state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin last year topped $100 million.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a term-limited Democrat who opposes the measure, said gerrymandering and dark money have put the Legislature out of step with the state and, “to think you can make the judicial branch a part of that dysfunctional system is frightening.”
GOP lawmakers cite multiple rulings by Kansas courts over the past two decades as reasons for change.
Most recently, a district court judge earlier this month reinstated a three-day grace period for voters to return mail ballots after Election Day, which GOP lawmakers had eliminated. Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, seeking the Republican nomination for governor, called the decision “outrageous” and urged people to vote yes on the ballot question.
The same judge — a finalist to fill the most recent Supreme Court vacancy — blocked enforcement of a 2025 law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Masterson described him as “radical.”
The list of rulings Republicans criticize also includes rulings on education funding back to 2004. Supreme Court decisions forced lawmakers to increase funding to comply with the state constitution.
Electing state Supreme Court justices gained currency among Republicans after a 2022 public vote affirming the high court’s landmark 2019 decision that Kansas’ bill of rights guarantees bodily autonomy and access to abortion. Total spending by both sides has exceeded $12 million.
Legislators who worked to overturn the Supreme Court’s protections, including Masterson, helped write this year’s proposal.
Seven weeks after that 2022 vote, Attorney General Kris Kobach, then a GOP candidate for the office, told a Republican club in Wichita that electing justices would “slowly and quietly” put anti-abortion justices on the high court.
The vote-yes campaign’s biggest donor — providing $1.7 million toward the campaign’s $3.7 million in spending — is a Nashville-based nonprofit that supports Republican candidates, groups and causes. Kansans for Life, the state’s most influential anti-abortion group, has spent at least $87,000 over the past 11 days on mailers and texts.
Meanwhile, the national and state affiliates for abortion provider Planned Parenthood contributed another $1.6 million toward the vote-no campaign’s $8 million-plus in spending.
Backers of the Kansas proposal brush aside arguments that electing the justices will give wealthy donors control over the Supreme Court.
Twenty-two states elect their top court’s judges, eight in partisan races. Governors in 26 states appoint them. In South Carolina and Virginia, legislators pick the justices.
Kansas elected justices for nearly 100 years before voters amended the state constitution in 1958. The governor now picks one of three finalists named by a nominating commission controlled by attorneys. Legislators have no role.
A review of every state’s current and past constitutions shows that the last state to add an amendment like the one Kansas is contemplating was Mississippi in 1914. Since then, 18 states’ amendments went the opposite way.
