Is Ohio really likely to repeal the death penalty "in the next year or so"?

The question in the title of this post come in response to this local article, headlined "Conservatives organize to end Ohio’s death penalty," reporting on the latest indication that the Buckeye State may be moving pretty swiftly toward death penalty abolition.  Here are the details:

As Ohio’s years-long struggle to obtain execution drugs continues with no end in sight, there’s a new effort underway to completely abolish capital punishment in the state – this time, with increasing involvement by conservatives.

But though activists say they’re confident that state lawmakers will soon get rid of the death penalty, whether legislators will actually take such action isn’t a foregone conclusion.

At a Statehouse news conference Tuesday, the newly created Ohio chapter of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty released a list of conservatives in favor of abolishing Ohio’s death penalty, under which more than 50 people have been put to death since the state resumed executions in 1999.

The list includes a number of former Republican officeholders, including former Attorney General Jim Petro, ex-Gov. Bob Taft, and longtime U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi. Several former staffers of ex-Gov. John Kasich also signed on – though Kasich himself has not.

Only three people on the list are sitting GOP lawmakers: state Reps. Craig Riedel of Defiance, Laura Lanese of suburban Columbus, and Niraj Antani of the Dayton area.

Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a Perry County Republican, has repeatedly said that his support of the death penalty is eroding. Gov. Mike DeWine, a Greene County Republican, has put a freeze on executions in Ohio because pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell drugs to the state for use in lethal injections, though he has stayed silent about whether he continues to support the death penalty.

Hannah Kubbins, director of the non-partisan Ohioans To Stop Executions, said she and Hannah Cox, national manager for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, have already spoken with a majority of Ohio lawmakers about getting rid of capital punishment. “I think that we will see repeal in the next year or so,” Kubbins said in an interview. “The conversations are encouraging. …It’s becoming a conservative-led, bipartisan-supported movement.”

Some Republican lawmakers, she said, were already skeptical about capital punishment on religious grounds, or because of concerns about the high taxpayer-funded expense of putting someone to death. Others, she said, are becoming anti-death penalty because of Ohio’s problems with death drugs. Another factor is conservatives’ preference for smaller government. “To give big government power over life and death is rather concerning to a lot of us,” Lanese said Tuesday.

Despite the optimism, repealing Ohio’s death penalty is anything but a done deal. Senate President Larry Obhof, a Medina Republican, said earlier this month that it’s “unlikely” that the Ohio General Assembly would abolish the death penalty completely in the next year, adding that most lawmakers still favor executions in “particularly heinous cases.”...

Lanese said while she admires Kubbins’ optimism about lawmakers abolishing the death penalty within a year, such a move won’t happen overnight. “We’re going to chip away at this,” Lanese said. “I do know that this is a deeply held belief for a lot of people on both sides, so it’s going to take a lot of work – especially with conservatives.”

I am following this discussion so closely in part because I am based in Ohio and have former students involved in capital litigation.  But I also continue to view Ohio as an important bellwether, and I think it could prove especially significant foe there to be repeal of the death penalty in a state that has executed many persons in the past and that is currently controlled entirely by GOP officials.

Prior related posts:

• New Ohio Gov puts halt to all executions until Ohio develops new execution method 
• Amidst persistent difficulties with lethal injection drugs, Ohio legislator to propose use of fentanyl taken from drug busts for executions 
• Might execution woes really lead Ohio's (deep red) General Assembly to repeal the death penalty? 
• Has Ohio really had its last execution? 
• Ohio legislators predict more talk, but no likely action, on state's dormant death penalty 
• Latest issue of Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law full of capital punishment discussion 
• Can a new conservative group help get the death penalty abolished in Ohio?