(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost issued the following statement in response to proposed legislation to end Ohio’s death penalty:
“This bill’s introduction provides a platform for a much-needed, long-overdue debate about our broken capital-punishment system, which fails day after day to deliver justice to victims and their families.
I support the death penalty, especially for the most heinous offenders and as a way to protect our corrections officers. Consider offenders already serving a life sentence who commit murder in prison – what penalty should they receive?
The bottom line: Ohio’s death penalty is a farce and a broken promise of justice – and it must be fixed. This discussion has been a long time coming, so let’s have it now. If Ohio chooses to end capital punishment, let it own the decision in the full light of day. I will stand on the other side, with the families of the slain.”
Later this week, AG Yost will issue the “2022 Capital Crimes Report,” which includes information and a procedural history on each case that has resulted in a death sentence in Ohio since 1981, the year the state instituted the death penalty.
Ohio Senator Steve Huffman Cosponsors Bipartisan Effort to Repeal Death Penalty
State Senator Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City) joined Minority Leader Nickie Antonio in sponsoring a bill that would repeal Ohio’s death penalty.
“As a devout Catholic I believe that the power to end a life should only lie in God’s hands,” said Senator Huffman. “As a medical doctor, I believe that life begins at conception and ends when the Lord decides the day.”
Currently, the death penalty is on hold as the lethal combination of drugs remains difficult to secure or remains unavailable from vendors and companies that manufacture the drugs.
In 2019, Governor DeWine stopped executions based on a federal judge’s order to perform a thorough review of Ohio’s death penalty procedures. The Governor has been clear that there will be no more executions unless the General Assembly changes the process for carrying them out.
“A life sentence is the end of one’s life and freedom outside the cold walls of a prison,” said Senator Huffman. “Wilford Berry understood that, and volunteered to be the first person executed in Ohio in 36 years in 1999 after Ohio reinstated the death penalty. To him, prison was far worse than lethal injection.”
The repeal currently has 12 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate.