News & Commentary

Ohio’s death penalty has had a long and sordid history. Just look at the past decade: » Four botched executions. » Ten people granted clemency by the governor. » Fifty-six recommendations from an Ohio Supreme Court taskforce of experts to revamp our broken system. With botched executions and growing controversy around lethal injections in Arizona, Oklahoma, and elsewhere, a federal judge in Ohio rightfully paused executions until the state could adopt new protocols. Given all of these problems, the most recent move from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is downright confounding. What is his solution to Ohio’s execution problems? Close the curtain and keep the public out. The attorney general announced during a press interview that he was pursuing legislation that would block the public’s access to what compounding pharmacy manufactures drugs for lethal injections and the identities of medical personnel who assist in executions. He also wants to provide immunity for those individuals from professional or ethical reprimands for their participation. No matter what your position is on the death penalty, it is important to understand that this level of secrecy will be detrimental for Ohio. The government represents the people and should be accountable to us. We have laws that require government officials to provide public records and have open meetings in order to prevent corruption, abuse, and incompetence. Taking a person’s life is the ultimate punishment that the public can dole out, which means we have to take even greater pains to ensure the government does it humanely and legally. Allowing anonymity for drug manufacturers is particularly problematic. Ohio would like to use compounding pharmacies, which are totally unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration for safety and efficacy. Compounding pharmacies make small batches of drugs, with each one being unique. This means that some batches might be more potent than another, and some might be contaminated. Only a few years ago, dozens of people in the United States died from a contaminated batch of steroids produced by a compounding pharmacy. And now Attorney General DeWine wants to introduce more secrecy and less accountability to this situation? Unfortunately, secrecy is the typical reaction of the government in any number of circumstances—when problems crop up, they want to hide the truth from the people.

Belle Likover and Susan Galloway

“…Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

With so many nonprofit organizations working on important issues across the state, what made the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations (OANO) present the ACLU of Ohio with a 2014 Nonprofit Excellence Award?

Tim Williamson,’ Detained youth,
Forty-seven years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling In re Gault held that young people are entitled to the same procedural rights as adults in court proceedings. However, one right that adults have in Ohio, that young people do not have, is the right to appear in court free of restraints.

Courts have ruled that restraints may only be used on adults who pose a safety risk or who have a documented history of escape. Adults in Ohio and around the country have the right to appear in court without handcuffs, belly chains, or leg irons regardless of the charges they face. Only an adult who has been documented to be a serious safety risk may be shackled, and the court must use due process and evidence to determine this. The use of restraints in adult courts is rare.

Youth in several states in the nation have the right to appear in court unrestrained. However, in Ohio’s juvenile courts, the use of restraints is common.

Due to this inconsistency between Ohio’s adult court and juvenile court, an adult facing multiple serious charges will not wear restraints while a youth facing minor or non-criminal charges will.

This does not seem right, does it?

Research and the U.S. Supreme Court have found that minors are less culpable and more amenable to rehabilitation than adults.

So why are we treating them more harshly than adults?

We must treat our youth as well—or better—than we do adults in the justice system. It’s time to unshackle Ohio’s youth.