Will death penalty in Ohio find itself on life support?

COLUMBUS

There are about 140 men and one woman sitting on Ohio’s Death Row at the moment, and there are legitimate questions whether any of them will ever face the ultimate penalty.

Capital punishment is being challenged all over the country, following botched executions here and elsewhere. Lawmakers in Nebraska this month abolished the death penalty in that state, overriding a gubernatorial veto in the process.

Here in Ohio, there have been no lethal injections for more than a year, after the prolonged death of Dennis McGuire in January 2014.

Executions formerly scheduled for this year have been pushed back to next, as prison officials try to find new sources for lethal injection drugs and work to implement a new execution protocol. And a lawmaker- created panel is supposed to consider alternate methods of putting prisoners to death.

That’s the backdrop that was in place when two state senators, one Republican and Democrat, stood before a legislative committee this week, offering sponsor testimony on a package of death penalty-related law changes.

APPROPRIATE ADMINISTRATION

Their main message: We have to address issues in the legal process to ensure the death penalty is administered appropriately.

“While I favor retention of the death penalty and my joint sponsor does not, we both agree that it must be fairly administered to minimize the chance that an innocent person will suffer the ultimate punishment,” said Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, referencing his co-sponsor, Sen. Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland.

“These are sound recommendations from the Death Penalty Task Force and largely noncontroversial and should therefore be adopted.”

Williams added in her submitted testimony, “We must ensure that progress is being made in improving fairness and increase the confidence that the death penalty, when administered, is in fact being administered to the worst of the worst. The state would be better protected against the colossal error of executing an innocent person and better placed to reserve death sentences for the worst of the worst.”

The aforementioned task force was launched a few years ago by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor to review capital punishment in Ohio and offer recommendations for improvement in its administration.

The resulting report called for barring the death penalty for those who are seriously mentally ill or in cases that rely on the testimony of jailhouse informants and requiring the recording of clemency hearings and parole board interview with inmates and providing copies for public review, among numerous other policy suggestions.

LACK OF AGREEMENT

Members were split on some of the recommendations, and prosecutors submitted dissenting opinions with the final report.

But members were fully supportive of other ideas, some of which are included in Senate Bill 139, which mostly covers the handling of and access to trial-court documents and filings during death penalty appeals.

“All we’re talking about is injecting a huge procedural improvement in this bill that will allow for more effective presentation of post-conviction relief proceedings,” Seitz said.

He’s already anticipating some pushback from prosecutors.

“If we don’t do some things to make sure that this is done fairly, if we don’t do some things to clean up our procedures... there’s going to come a point in time when people are going to say let’s forget the death penalty altogether,” Seitz said. “And lest you think that this could never happen in Ohio, it happened just last week in Nebraska.”

He added, “My goal... is to make sure we’ve done everything possible to minimize the chance that an innocent person pays the ultimate penalty. And by doing that, we will be able to retain the death penalty or have a better chance of retaining the death penalty for those truly egregious cases — Tim McVeigh, the Boston marathon bomber, etc. — where it might be appropriate to apply.”

Marc Kovac is the The Vindicator’s Columbus correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog