Mike DeWine

Ohio still adding to Death Row population

april 2, 2014

In the past decade, Ohio’s Death Row has shrunk by one-third, from 209 to 139.

But a new state report shows that the courts continue to sentence people to death at the same time the process of lethal injection is mired in legal controversy.

The 2013 Capital Crimes Report issued yesterday by Attorney General Mike DeWine says 12 executions are scheduled in the next two years, with four more awaiting the setting of death dates. Among those scheduled are three from Franklin County: Warren Henness (Jan. 7), Alva Campbell (July 7, 2015), and Kareem Jackson (Jan. 21, 2016).

Ohio has carried out 54 executions since 1999, including three last year, the same as in 2012.

The annual status report on capital punishment in Ohio, which covers calendar year 2013, does not mention the problems during the Jan. 16, 2014, execution of Dennis McGuire when he gasped, choked and struggled for more than 10 minutes before succumbing to a two-drug combination never before used in a U.S. execution.

A lawsuit has been filed by McGuire’s two children, and the drug issue prompted Gov. John Kasich to push back the scheduled March 19 execution of Gregory Lott until November.

The next scheduled execution is Arthur Tyler of Cuyahoga County on May 28.

DeWine’s report says 316 people have been sentenced to death in Ohio since 1981, when capital punishment was restored after being overturned as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The report cites 18 gubernatorial commutations of death sentences: four by Kasich, five by Gov. Ted Strickland, one by Gov. Bob Taft and eight by Gov. Richard F. Celeste.

In all, 26 convicted killers have died in prison, including Billy Slagle of Cleveland, who committed suicide on Death Row on Aug. 4, 2013.

DeWine reported that 74 capital-punishment sentences were removed by the courts, and six, including Donna Roberts, the only woman currently sentenced to death in Ohio, are facing resentencing.

There have been 34 whites and 19 blacks executed, all males. They spent an average of 16.6 years in prison before being executed.

Of their 85 victims, 65 were adults and 19 were children. White victims outnumbered blacks 2-1.

For the first time this year, a group opposed to the death penalty issued its own report in response to the official state document. Ohioans to Stop Executions concludes, “While Ohio’s overall use of the death penalty is slowing, it has become clearer than ever before that the race of the victim and location of the crime are the most-accurate predictors of death sentences in the Buckeye State.”

The group said 40 percent of death sentences originate in Cuyahoga County. Ohio prosecutors filed 21 capital-murder indictments last year, a 28 percent drop from 2012, as sentences of life without the possibility of parole became more prevalent.

The full state report can be found online at http://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Files/Publications/Publications-for-Law-Enforcement/Capital-Crimes-Annual-Reports/2013-Capital-Crimes-Annual-Report.

Ohio death penalty debate continues as executions start up again

april 7, 2012 source : http://www.the-daily-record.com

COLUMBUS — Attorney General Mike DeWine has released the 2011 Capital Crimes Annual Report, the yearly snapshot of Ohio’s Death Row, listing facts and figures about inmates who have been executed and those facing death.

It’s a timely survey, given the continuing debate over Ohio’s administration of the death penalty.

According to the report, 313 death sentences have been issued in Ohio since 1981, a number that includes multiple sentences for some individual inmates.

Of those, the state has executed 46. The first was Wilford Berry on Feb. 19, 1999. The most recent was Reginald Brooks on Nov. 15 of last year.

The average age of executed inmates was 45. Nineteen were black, 27 white, all men, serving an average of more than 16 years on Death Row.

They killed 76 people, including 17 children.

The highest number of executions in recent years was in 2010, when eight inmates received lethal injections. Five more were put to death last year.

Sixteen inmates had their death sentences commuted. Gov. John Kasich has granted clemency twice, for Shawn Hawkins (convicted of a drug-related double murder in Hamilton County in 1989) and Joseph Murphy (convicted of killing an elderly Marion woman in 1987).

Former Govs. Ted Strickland, Bob Taft and Dick Celeste commuted the sentences of five, one and eight Death Row inmates, respectively.

Twenty-two inmates died in prison either of natural causes or suicide before their death sentences being carried out.

Eight were deemed mentally retarded and, thus, not eligible for death sentences. Eight are pending resentencing. And 71 had their sentences blocked by judicial action.

That leaves 154 people on Ohio’s Death Row, most of whom have been relocated from the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown to the Chillicothe Correctional institution, located about 50 miles south of Columbus.

Four of those received death sentences last year. A dozen have dates set for their lethal injections.

Mark Wiles, convicted in the brutal knifing death of a Portage County teen, is next in line on April 18, pending any additional legal challenges.

Green light

The report was released a few days before a federal court ruled Ohio could move ahead with Wiles’ execution.

But Judge Gregory Frost didn’t mince words concerning Ohio and the death penalty.

In a decision last week, he declined a request from legal counsel for Wiles to stop his scheduled execution, opening the door for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to restart lethal injections after several months of delays.

But Frost made it clear prison officials better get it right this time.

He’s understandably skeptical, writing in his decision, “Ohio has time and again failed to follow through on its own execution protocol. The protocol is constitutional as written and executions are lawful, but the problem has been Ohio’s repeated inability to do what it says it will do.”

He added later, “They must recognize the consequences that will ensue if they fail to succeed in conducting a constitutionally sound execution of Wiles. They must recognize what performing a constitutionally sound Wiles execution and then returning to the flawed practices of the past would mean.”

Death penalty-free

Two Democratic state lawmakers continue to call for an end to the death penalty in Ohio, “raising fervent opposition” to Judge Frost’s decision last week,

Reps. Nickie Antonio, from the Cleveland area, and Ted Celeste, from the Columbus area, are sponsors of legislation that would ban the death penalty, replacing it with life in prison without parole.

Last week, they pointed to Connecticut, the 17th state in the country that has ceased putting inmates to death.

“Moving forward with executions is a step backward for Ohio,” Antonio said in a released statement. “Now is the time for Ohio to join policy leaders throughout the country and move to life without parole.”

Celeste added, “Connecticut will soon be the fifth state in the past five years to abolish this barbaric, outdated form of punishment. Public opinion is clearly changing with regard to capital punishment, and I am hopeful that Ohio will soon be able to capitalize on this momentum as well.”

Ohio’s execution process, death row inmates face uncertain future

With Ohio’s execution process tied up in court, 153 inmates on death row face an uncertain future.
The 2011 Capital Crimes report, issued today by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, summarizes the status of the death-penalty process, including the 12 inmates with scheduled execution dates and 46 inmates lethally injected since 1999. The report, required annually by state law, goes to the governor, state lawmakers and the courts.
What DeWine’s report does not say is when, or if, executions will resume. Reginald Brooks, a Cuyahoga County man who murdered his three sons in their beds, was the last person executed, on Nov. 15 last year.
Since then, the state has been tied up in federal court on a legal challenge to the lethal injection process. U.S. District Judge Gregory L. Frost has been highly critical of the state’s lethal-injection protocol and stopped an execution; Gov. John Kasich postponed others, anticipating federal court entanglements.
In general, the appeals process in capital punishment cases takes so long that 22 Death Row inmates died before their execution, DeWine said. That number increased by one this week with the death by natural causes of Billy Sowell, 75, of Hamilton County.
DeWine’s report covered the calendar year through Dec. 31, 2011.
DeWine reported there are 14 convicted killers with scheduled death dates, although the number is now 12 with two having been postponed. The death dates run through Jan. 16, 2014.
The 46 men who have been executed were responsible for killing 76 people, 17 of them children.
Source: Columbus Dispatch, March 31, 2012