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Updated 04.03.12 The ACLU opposes capital
punishment because it violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment,
is administered arbitrarily and unfairly, and fails to deter crime or improve public
safety.
What's Happening in Ohio
Celebrated Anti-Death-Penalty Activists and ACLU
Partners to be Presented With Howard M. Metzenbaum Award
Staughton and Alice Lynd have been married for 60 years, and have been prominent
activists for nearly as long. They are also longtime friends and partners of the
ACLU of Ohio.
The Lynds moved to Ohio in 1976 and were profoundly affected by the 1993 Lucasville
prison uprising and its aftermath. Staughton Lynd served as ACLU cooperating
council in the appeals of Siddique Abdullah Hasan, who was sentenced to death for
allegedly killing a corrections officer during the uprising. Lynd argued that
prosecutors presented false
evidence in Hasan’s case. In 2007, the ACLU presented a statewide tour
of Staughton Lynd’s play on the subject, entitled Lucasville: The Untold
Story of a Prison Uprising.
The Lynds also served as ACLU cooperating attorneys in 2001, assisting in a
successful class action
lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of conditions in the then-new
“super-max” prison facility in Youngstown.
“Haphazard” Execution Policies Result in
Stay
The State of Ohio will not appeal a judge’s decision to stay the execution of
Kenneth Smith, who was scheduled to be executed on July 19, 2011. In the decision, U.S.
Court Judge Gregory Frost noted, “Ohio pays lip service to standards it then often
ignores without valid reasons, sometimes with no physical ramifications and sometimes
with what have been described as messy if not botched executions.”
As a result of the stay, Governor Kasich granted reprieve to two other people, but then
resumed executions in November 2011.
However, in early 2012 Judge Frost once again stopped the executions of Charles Lorraine
and Michael Webb because of the states execution protocols.
The state is appealing the decision, and also creating updated policies.
This is not the first time Ohio’s haphazard execution protocols have been
challenged. In 2008, the ACLU of Ohio won a judgment in Lorain County Common Pleas
Court in the case of State of Ohio v. Rivera. The Court ruled that the
state’s lethal injection protocols violated state law that executions should
be ‘quick and painless.’ Read the
execution protocols from the case here.
Moratorium on Executions
Ohio’s executions have been plagued by problems that even those who had supported
the death penalty recognize. Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, the architect of Ohio’s current death penalty statute,
has called for an end to the death penalty in Ohio, as has former Ohio Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction Director Terry Collins.
As the 2011 Ohio legislative session came to an end, Pfeifer stood
before lawmakers and predicted that it is only a matter of time before the death-penalty
legislation he helped write 30 years ago is abolished. He gave testimony on behalf of
HB 160,
a bill which would abolish the death penalty in Ohio and explained how he turned away from
the death penalty after seeing how the location of crimes and the attitudes of prosecutors
turn the system into a “death lottery.” The ACLU of Ohio also offered testimony in support of House
Bill 160.
As lawmakers heard testimony on the fundamental injustice of the death penalty, The
Dayton Daily News reported that Ohio currently holds the nation's third highest execution rate, despite a
six month hiatus and the fact that
U.S. courts issued fewer death sentences this year than they have since capital punishment
was reinstated in 1976.
A 2011 Death Penalty
Information Center Report highlights that factors unrelated to the crime are better
predictors of who will be put to death than the crime itself. Quality of legal
representation, the prosecutor’s decision to pursue capital sentencing, and
the victim’s race all affect who is put to death and who is not.
Call Governor Kasich to stop executions now!
Court holds that defendants must have adequate representation in mitigation hearings
On August 25, 2011, the U. S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to reverse the decision of the U. S. District Court in the case of Kelly Foust.
The court vacated Foust's death sentence, and ordered a new sentencing hearing.
Judge Karen Nelson Moore explained in the court's opinion that Foust's trial lawyers' near total failure to gather records and investigate the horrific circumstances of Foust's life effectively deprived the trial court of the information it needed for a fair sentencing proceeding.
Even granting the "double deference" federal courts are required to afford the decisions of state courts in these matters, the decision of the Ohio courts denying Foust a new sentencing was not only wrong, it was unreasonably wrong and violated his constitutional rights.
Ohio’s Execution Dates and Statistics
On April 4, 2011, Attorney General Mike DeWine released the state's annual report
on death row and capital punishment statistics.
Nearly one execution each month is scheduled between now and September 2013. For a complete
listing, click here.
ACLU of Ohio Litigation
The ACLU of Ohio has litigated on behalf of a number of death row
inmates. For more information about our cases, please visit our
legal docket.
Resources
Visit our Criminal Justice,
Police Practices, and
Racial Justice issues pages for more information
about our justice system.
Check out our Publications page for more
resources on criminal justice issues.
Read testimony in
support of House Bill 160 by Gary Daniels, Associate Director of the ACLU of Ohio.
Death
Penalty Information Center, Statistics and reports on the death penalty in Ohio and
across the U.S.
Interested in the latest death penalty news? Read former ACLU of Ohio Legal Director
Jeff Gamso’s blog “Gamso for the Defense.”
History
of Capital Punishment in Ohio, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
Office of
the Ohio Public Defender, Death Penalty Division, Statistics including lists of people on Ohio’s death row and the race of defendants and victims
Ohioans to Stop Executions, News and advocacy on the death penalty in Ohio
The Reality of the Death Penalty,
By former ACLU of Ohio Legal Director Jeff Gamso (en espaņol)
Read death penalty news releases and articles in our
News Center.
Browse our webcasts for death penalty-related programs:
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