Reviewing the state of the death penalty in the Buckeye state

One of many reasons I am so very grateful to be able to teach and research sentencing law and policy at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law is because Ohio is an especially interesting and dynamic state with respect to its application of the death penalty.  And this local article, headlined "Ohio executes inmates more than most states: State is 4th among 32 with death penalty, while support, availability of drugs wane," provides an effective review of the state of the death penalty in the state these days. Here are excerpts:

Three ... executions occurred in Ohio [in 2013], which ranked fourth in executions behind Texas, Florida and Oklahoma.... Those executed were Frederick Treesh for the 1984 murder of Henry Dupree in Lake County; Steven T. Smith for the 1998 murder of Autumn Carter in Richland County; and Harry Mitts Jr. for the 1994 murders of John Bryant and Sgt. Dennis Glivar in Cuyahoga County. Billy Slagle was set to be executed this year for the 1988 murder of Mari Anne Pope in Cuyahoga County, but he committed suicide just days before the scheduled date.

Mitts was the last prisoner executed before the state’s supply of pentobarbital expired. Ohio’s new policy would use a never-tested combination of midazolam and hydromorphone if pentobarbital became unavailable.

Convicted murderer Ronald Phillips was scheduled to be the first recipient of the drug combination, but Gov. John Kasich delayed Phillips’ execution until July to see whether the inmate could donate his organs to ailing relatives.

Now, Dennis McGuire, who raped and fatally stabbed a pregnant woman, is set to be the first executed with the new combination. He is seeking a reprieve of his execution, which is scheduled for Jan. 16....

The number of inmates on Ohio’s death row, currently 140, has declined every year since 2003, according to December population counts from the state prison system.

A task force assembled by the Ohio Supreme Court and Ohio State Bar Association in 2011 to review Ohio’s use of the death penalty has made several suggestions for changes to state law. Those include eliminating the death penalty for inmates with serious mental illness during the time of the offense and standardizing pay for attorneys defending capital cases....

Several bills introduced this year address the death penalty, yet none has received a committee vote. One introduced by House Democrats would abolish the death penalty, whereas another backed by Senate Democrats would spare anyone sentenced to death because of race. A Cincinnati Republican wants to expand the death penalty to repeat sex offenders....

Ohio has executed 52 inmates since 1999 — all were men and nearly two-thirds were white. The highest number of executions in a year since Ohio reinstated the death penalty in 1981 was eight in 2010, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Ohio has set six executions for 2014, six for 2015 and one for 2016.

Eleven prisoners have been executed during Kasich’s tenure compared with nine in the first three years of predecessor Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, and two in the first three years of Republican Bob Taft’s tenure. Kasich has commuted four death row inmates’ sentences to life in prison without parole; Strickland commuted five death sentences over four years.

None of the states that surround Ohio executed a prisoner in 2013. Michigan and West Virginia are among the 18 states that do not have a death penalty.