Death Penalty News

Like Gov. Mike DeWine, most agreed the death penalty is broken and does not deter crime, but not always with the same reasoning. Some people on Ohio’s death row praised Gov. Mike DeWine for having the courage to come out against the death penalty. Others said actions speak louder than words, and they want the governor to commute their death sentences to life without the possibility of parole. But all agreed with the governor on one thing: Ohio’s death penalty law is broken. DeWine said long delays in carrying out executions undermine its intended function as a deterrent. Condemned prisoners resoundingly said that the possibility of being executed never stopped anyone from committing murder.

The death row population in the U.S. has dropped below 2,000 for the first time since the 1980s, according to the latest report on national capital punishment trends released by the civil rights think tank Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF). The Spring 2026 edition of Death Row U.S.A., which tracks state and national data on death row populations, executions, the race and sex of victims in execution cases, and the impact of moratoria and judicial reversals, shows that the nation’s death row population now stands at 1,993, down 47% from its peak of 3,726 in January 2001. The current death-row population is the smallest recorded in LDF’s more than 50 years of monitoring since December 1987, when 1,982 incarcerated people faced execution.