Alan Johnson's Columbus Dispatch report is, "Leave death penalty up to a panel?"
Curing geographical unfairness in capital-punishment cases may require a statewide commission, not county prosecutors, to make the decision when to seek the death penalty.
That was the opinion of James Brogan, a retired appeals-court judge from Dayton who chairs the Joint Task Force to Study Administration of the Death Penalty. He said during yesterday’s task force meeting at the Ohio Supreme Court that the state must deal with geographical disparities.
“As (Ohio Supreme Court) Justice Paul Pfeifer said, it’s a lottery whether or not you get the death penalty depending on where you live,” Brogan said at the panel’s second meeting at the Supreme Court. “The solution may not be the abolition of the death penalty. The goal is fair administration of the death penalty.”
Brogan said the task force should consider a plan similar to one in Tennessee, where county prosecutors submit murder cases to a statewide commission, which has the ultimate authority to decide if a death sentence should be pursued.
State Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, also a task force member, called it “not necessarily a crazy idea.” He said he spoke recently with a “conservative Republican” judge in Hamilton County who advocated the same thing.
But don’t expect prosecutors — two of whom are on the task force — to warmly embrace the idea. Joseph T. Deters, a Republican from Hamilton County, and Dennis Watkins, a Democrat from Trumbull County, are both staunch capital-punishment supporters.
And:
While Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who appointed the task force, made it clear from the beginning that the group is not to decide whether the state should have the death penalty, competing interests on the panel are taking sides in the yearlong process. The task force is comprised of judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, the state public defender, lawmakers and academics.
"Prosecutor: Give victims voice on death sentences," is Andrew Welsh-Huggins' AP coverage of the meeting, via the Zanesville Times Recorder.
Relatives of murder victims would be allowed to tell juries weighing death sentences how the crimes affected them and split-jury decisions would no longer automatically rule out death sentences under proposals submitted to a state death penalty task force by a veteran prosecutor.
Ohio juries and judges also should be allowed to consider a multitude of factors about a homicide carrying the possibility of a death sentence, not just specific elements laid out in state law, Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters said.
"The victim's family many times don't understand why they can't explain the impact this has had to their family," Deters said Thursday, discussing a letter he sent to fellow members of the task force earlier this week.
And:
Ohio law now requires juries to weigh specific aggravating factors -- whether the victim was a child or a police officer or was killed during a robbery -- against factors in the offender's favor, such as a poor childhood or mental illness.
Deters wants more factors to be considered, such as statements from family members, a defendant's criminal record and any evidence of posing a future danger. He also said a jury shouldn't have to vote unanimously for a death sentence to prevent "rogue jurors" from thwarting the majority's wishes.
Since resuming executions in 1999, Ohio has executed 45, including five in 2011.
Earlier coverage of the Joint Task Force begins at the link. Related posts are in the study commission index.
Coverage of Ohio lethal injection issues begins in the preceding post. In December an Ohio legislative hearing was held on capital punishment issues. There are also links available to coverage of former Chief Justice Pfeifer's call for repeal and the 2007 ABA report detailing problems with the state's administration of capital punishment. The complete ABA Moratorium Implementation Project's Ohio Assessment report is available via the ABA.
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