Ohio: Most death row inmates have mental disabilities, should not be executed

Most of the 26 men scheduled for execution in Ohio over three years have intellectual impairments, mental illness and childhood abuse and should not be put to death, a study by Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project concludes.

A report released Wednesday looked at all 26 cases of convicted killers set to be executed in Ohio through 2020, beginning with Gary Otte on Sept. 13. It said Ohio is “poised to violate constitutional limits” by executing impaired inmates.

“Our research on individuals facing execution in Ohio turned up some absolutely horrifying stories of abuse, mental illness and disability,” said Jessica Brand, legal director for the Fair Punishment Project. “In fact, in 88 percent of the cases we looked at, we found significant impairments, many of which were never considered by a judge or jury. This indicates something has clearly gone awry in the state’s implementation of the death penalty.”

Relying on legal pleadings, court opinions and trial testimony, the Fair Punishment Project found 17 of 26 men had serious childhood trauma, including extensive physical and sexual abuse; six have mental illness; 11 show “intellectual or cognitive impairment, including brain injury,” and three were younger than 21 at the time of the crime, an age where the brain is “underdeveloped.”

“Unless the governor or a court intervenes, over the course of the next two years, Ohio appears poised to violate that constitutional limitation by scheduling the executions of nearly a dozen individuals who have debilitating impairments, including mental illness, childhood abuse, and intellectual disability,” the report concluded.

Ohio resumed executions July 26 after a three-year delay when Ronald Phillips was put to death at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville.

 'A law barring execution of the mentally ill would in effect repeal the death penalty'

The issue of who is fit and unfit for execution has been the subject of legal debate for decades. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against executing people with severe mental disabilities, but there is no comparable bright-line standard on executing the mentally ill and trauma victims.

Legislation pending in the General Assembly, House Bill 81, would prevent executing people who can prove they had a serious mental illness when they committed aggravated murder. It would also allow current death row inmates to seek re-sentencing.

John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said recently that a law barring execution of the mentally ill “would in effect repeal the death penalty. ... I think every single one of the persons on death row will file for this.”

An Ohio Supreme Court joint task force recommended the ban on executing the mentally ill, but it has yet to be enacted.

Ohio Public Defender Tim Young said people with mental impairments and mental illness “are not the worst of the worst. They’re the weakest of the weakest.”

“There is nothing about Ohio that is different from the other execution states,” Young said. “They’re all pushing the absolute boundaries of the constitution and sometimes crossing those boundaries.”

Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, said the report highlights a “fundamental morality problem when Ohio reserves execution for those with the lowest intellectual functioning, with the most troubling histories of childhood abuse, and for individuals with mental illnesses.”

➤ The full report can be accessed here.

Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Alan Johnson, August 30, 2017

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde