death penalty
Ohio House Republicans looking to create states rights ‘Tenth Amendment Center’ in AG’s Office
A group of 14 Ohio House Republicans are putting forward a bill to create a states rights “Tenth Amendment Center” within the office of the state attorney general. Ohio House Bill 506 creates a Tenth Amendment center to “actively monitor federal executive orders, federal statutes, and federal regulations for potential abuse or overreach, including assertion […]
Experts: Trauma builds, ending for some at death row
Invariably, the crimes over which people land on death row are soaked in trauma, often consisting of the most violent deaths suffered by sympathetic victims. But it’s also often the case that those accused of perpetrating them have traumatic histories of their own. On Thursday, a pair of experts told a group of defense attorneys […]
Family member of death row exoneree speaks out
When a man named Dale Johnston began dating my mother-in-law in 1998, I admit that I was uneasy. In the town where we lived, his name had become synonymous with brutality, violence, and evil. In 1982, the bodies of Dale’s stepdaughter, Annette Cooper and her fiancé, Todd Schultz, had been discovered in pieces along the […]
Fifty years in, death penalty still unworkable, group says
If there’s a way to make the death penalty nonarbitrary and nondiscriminatory, the United States hasn’t found it, a group that studies capital punishment said in a report released Tuesday. Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Furman v Georgia. It effectively put the death penalty on hold after the court […]
Ohio gets closer to abolishing death penalty
The following article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland. Ohio hasn’t executed a prisoner in about four years, but capital […]
Group highlights the parallels between lynching and the modern death penalty
An anti-death penalty group in Ohio is arguing that lynchings in the 19th and early 20th centuries had a lot in common with the way the modern death penalty is applied. On Thursday it will highlight Ohio lynchings to make that case. The argument delves deeply into a complex and often painful past that some […]
In 2021 the death penalty faded further in Ohio, U.S.
In 2021, the death penalty faded further in Ohio, U.S.
Law, religion come together in support of death penalty ban
Supporters of a measure to eliminate the death penalty in Ohio include religious and legal leaders, who say the concept is both a waste of the state’s money and time, and unethical. “The death penalty is the most inefficient government program in existence in Ohio today,” said Timothy Young, Ohio’s state public defender. “I don’t […]
Son of murder victim urges legislature to end death penalty quickly
By Jonathan Mann Thomas Knuff, the man who murdered my father, was sentenced to death in 2019. Knuff brutally murdered my father and I live with the pain and grief of that violent loss every single day. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley sought the death penalty for Thomas Knuff and got the conviction. But when […]
Ohio AG: Clear death penalty roadblocks or get rid of it
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost last week used an annual report to draw attention to the fact that 140 people are languishing on death row because Ohio’s death penalty machinery “has grown increasingly time consuming, costly and lethargic.” Yost, a former prosecutor, might be expected to call for ways to speed up executions. But in […]
Chances for Ohio death penalty repeal appear to be growing
The biggest-ever bipartisan coalition on Thursday announced a renewed effort to repeal the death penalty in Ohio. State Sen. Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, and Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, hosted a virtual press conference to announce that they and three other Republican and four Democratic senators so far have said they will co-sponsor the repeal legislation. […]
Poll: Big majority in Ohio support getting rid of the death penalty
Almost 60% of Ohioans support replacing the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to a poll conducted late last year and released on Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the advocacy group Ohioans to Stop Executions. In addition, a majority supports a full repeal, including […]