Moral Decision that could save the State hundreds of millions of dollars.
State Representatives Ted Celeste (D-Grandview Heights) and Nickie J. Antonio (D-Lakewood) today announced plans to introduce a bill to abolish the death penalty in Ohio. The legislation will be known as the Execution of Justice Bill.
The State Representatives were joined by Kevin Werner, Executive Director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, Dale Johnston and Derrick Jamison, exonerated former death row inmates, Melinda Dawson, family member of a murder victim whose killer was executed, and Jim Tobin of the Catholic Conference of Ohio.
"The costs associated with litigation and multiple appeals for death row inmates can run tens of millions of dollars a year," said Rep. Celeste. "This should be a part of the overall budget conversation as it has the potential to provide major financial savings at a time when we are facing an enormous deficit."
Rep. Celeste continued, "Several estimates have been done in Maryland, North Carolina, and Texas that show the cost per death penalty case can be anywhere from $2.1 to $3 million or up to three times the cost of imprisonment for life."
With 156 inmates on death row, even using the most conservative figure of reducing costs by $2.1 million per death row inmate would lead to over $300 million in savings to the state of Ohio. Even if the savings were lowered to only $1 million per death row inmate, the savings would still be well over $150 million, a big figure when facing an $8 billion dollar shortfall.
16 other states have banned capital punishment, including Illinois who abolished the death penalty just last week, while Ohio is on a schedule to execute more inmates than any other state in 2011. The 9 people set to be executed in 2011 is the highest number since 1949.
"Not one execution in the state of Ohio has brought back the life of a beloved victim, nor healed the pain of their loss," said Rep. Antonio. "I believe the State of Ohio should take the compassionate, pragmatic and economically prudent step to abolish capital punishment."
Jim Tobin, representing the Catholic Bishops of Ohio, fully endorsed the legislation and stressed the Church's "deep conviction that all human life has value and dignity, even the life of the worst offender." He continued, "In other states and countries, life imprisonment has shown itself to be a fair, safe, and effective alternative. Unlike the death penalty, life imprisonment better responds to the imperfections in human justice and allows time for mistakes to be corrected."
Kevin Werner, Executive Director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, summed up the impact of capital cases on the victims' families, "They need healing and they need to grieve for the loss of their loved one. What they do not need is decades of retraumatizing court proceedings, media attention, or to relive, over and over, what is most certainly the worst day of their lives. Families who have lost loved ones to violence should not be made to suffer in silence. They need justice that is swift and certain. The death penalty offers them neither justice nor certainty."
Derrick Jamison, exonerated former death row inmate, put it plain and simple, "I think it is time for us to have a conversation about the death penalty. I think more of our state leaders should take this issue much more seriously. ... As my buddy Freddie Pitts, the President of Witness to Innocence from Florida says, 'You can free an innocent man from prison, but you can't free him from the grave.' Ohio, it's time to do what's right and end the death penalty."
Death Penalty Facts:
The criminal justice system is not infallible. Because of DNA evidence and further investigation of criminal cases, the Death Penalty Information Center says 5 innocent people have later been freed from Ohio's death row. These 5 innocent men spent more than 57 years imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.
When the wrong person is convicted, as happened in those 5 death row cases, dangerous criminals go free, making our communities less safe.
The American Bar Association conducted a study of Ohio's death penalty in 2007 and found that offenders who kill White people are 3.8 times more likely to receive a death sentence than those who kill Black people. When considering the current death row population, nearly 66% of the people on death row are there for the murders of White victims compared to 31% for the murder of Black victims.
Where a crime occurs in Ohio can play as significant a role as the nature of the crime. The Death Penalty Information Center reports 60% of Ohio counties have no residents on death row and more than half (56%) of the death row population comes from just five counties (Hamilton, Cuyahoga, Franklin, Lucas and Summit).
In a study of 1,936 capital indictments in Ohio, the Associated Press found that Ohio's death penalty was geographically uneven and noted that in Cuyahoga County, only 8% of capital defendants actually received a death sentence, compared with 43% in Hamilton County.
With 156 inmates on death row, even using the most conservative figure of reducing costs by $2.1 million per death row inmate would lead to over $300 million in savings to the state of Ohio. Even if the savings were lowered to only $1 million per death row inmate, the savings would still be well over $150 million, a big figure when facing an $8 billion dollar shortfall.
16 other states have banned capital punishment, including Illinois who abolished the death penalty just last week, while Ohio is on a schedule to execute more inmates than any other state in 2011. The 9 people set to be executed in 2011 is the highest number since 1949.
