The Republican speaker of the Ohio House said his caucus is discussing a possible repeal of Ohio’s death penalty, but his counterpart in the Senate said such a measure is unlikely to pass this year, the Columbus Dispatch reports.
Ohio hasn’t conducted an execution since 2018, first because a federal judge likened the state’s procedure to torture and then because drug makers reacted strongly against news that their products were being used in Ohio executions.
Some manufacturers threatened to stop selling medicine to the state for any purpose.
Speaking at the Associated Press legislative preview, Speaker Larry Householder reiterated his doubts about the future of the death penalty in Ohio.
“We have a law in the books that, quite frankly, we can’t enforce,” he said.
“We don’t have an instrument with which to comply, and we may never have an instrument with which to comply.”
Householder rejected a return to earlier execution methods such as firing squads or hanging.
“Maybe it’s time to take a look at putting people away for life in prison without parole,” he said.
Twenty-one states have abolished the death penalty, while four more have declared moratoriums.
Senate President Larry Obhof, a Republican, continues to support capital punishment. “The overall question of whether some form of the death penalty should be available to law enforcement and to prosecutors — I think for particularly heinous cases — I think most members would think ‘Yeah, probably’…” he said.
At the same event, Gov. Mike DeWine declined to express his personal opinion about the death penalty after postponing the executions of 11 killers in one year in office.
Source: thecrimereport.org, Staff, February 5, 2020
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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