Ending the Death Penalty
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.
The ACLU of Ohio is committed to repealing the death penalty in Ohio once and for all.
The death penalty is an expensive, ineffective, racist, and arbitrary system that puts innocent lives at risk. The administering of Ohio’s capital punishment system has featured all of those flaws and more since the state legislature reinstated it in 1981.
Did you know?
- Twelve people have been sentenced to death and then later declared innocent in Ohio. This kind of mistake is far too frequent when human lives are at stake.
- Black or African American people make up 13.3% of Ohio’s population and 55.8% of Ohio’s death row as of January 2023.
- Estimates from the nonpartisan Ohio Legislative Service Commission indicate that it may cost the state between $1 million to $3 million more per case to sentence someone to death instead of life without parole. Applying those estimates to the 119 people on Ohio's death row as of March 2025, the extra cost to the state of imposing those death sentences ranges from $121 million to $363 million.
- While legislative repeal of the death penalty remains pivotal, the executive branch also plays a significant role in our capital punishment system.
- Article III, Section 11 of the Ohio Constitution grants the Governor the power to issue reprieves (a temporary delay of a scheduled execution), commutations (a reduction in the inmate’s sentence), and pardons (which forgive entirely the remaining prison sentence). These powers are known collectively as clemency powers.
- Clemency is a last resort remedy for death row inmates who have exhausted all appeals in the courts; one final lifeline before the ultimate, irreversible sentence is carried out.
- Before he leaves office at the end of his term, Gov. Mike DeWine has the unique opportunity to provide that lifeline for the 100+ inmates on Ohio’s death row, particularly the 30 for whom an execution is scheduled during the next Governor’s four-year term.
- Gov. DeWine must take this opportunity to issue commutations before it is too late.
At the Statehouse, things are a little complicated. On the one hand, a bipartisan team of state senators again is backing a bill, Senate Bill (SB) 133, solely aimed at repealing Ohio's death penalty. The ACLU of Ohio is proud to reaffirm our support for this legislation.
However, these senators and a pair of state representatives also have introduced bills, in the form of SB 134 and House Bill (HB) 72, that deceptively tie death penalty repeal to antiabortion and anti-medical aid in dying provisions. To be crystal clear, the ACLU of Ohio opposes these Trojan Horse bills. Not only do they undermine the Reproductive Freedom Amendment approved by Ohio voters in 2023, they also attack the core ACLU principle of supporting medical aid in dying.
Beyond that, a pair of state representatives also have reintroduced legislation, in the form of HB 36, to authorize executions by nitrogen gas suffocation. Instead of finally abolishing our broken capital punishment system once and for all, this bill seeks to restart executions by an inhumane method the United Nations repeatedly has condemned as a human rights violation.
Currently, 23 states plus Washington D.C. have cut ties with the death penalty; Ohio can and should be the next.
The Latest
At All Costs: AG Yost’s Justice-Blind Pursuit of Vengeance
The Ohio Legislature's Misleading Approach to Death Penalty Repeal
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