"Death Row cases should be reviewed, justice says," is the title of Alan Johnson's report. It appeared in Saturday's Columbus Dispatch.
The "father of Ohio's death penalty," Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, says all current Death Row cases should be reviewed to see which ones warrant execution -- and which should be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"There are probably few people in Ohio that are proud of the fact we are executing people at the same pace as Texas," Pfeifer told The Dispatch. His comments came the day after the lethal injection of Michael Beuke, the fifth Ohioan executed this year and the 38th since 1999.
"When the next governor is sworn in," Pfeifer said, "I think the state would be well served if a blue-ribbon panel was appointed to look at all those cases.
"The only reason we have a death penalty is society demands retribution. ... I never made the argument that it was a deterrent. You can't prove it with numbers."
Pfeifer, a Supreme Court justice for the past 17 years, was one of three Republican state senators who resurrected Ohio's death-penalty law in 1981 after the old law had been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
At the time, Pfeifer included a life without parole option in the law, but the Ohio House refused to go along.
Pfeifer, a Republican who is unopposed for re-election to a fourth term on the court this fall, emphasized that he is not suggesting that convicted killers are innocent, or that any should be set free.
"The point is whether or not death is the appropriate penalty," he said.
Pfeifer said the majority of the old cases, had they been tried today under current law and societal standards, would not have resulted in capital punishment.
"The number of people we have accumulated on Death Row has been rather staggering," he said. "It's improbable that all of those folks are going to be executed."
With a high number of executions and relatively few new death sentences being handed out (one last year), Death Row has shrunk nearly 21 percent in Ohio, from a high of 203 prisoners in January 2002 to the current 161.
Six more executions are scheduled this year, and two have been set for 2011.
Ohio Public Defender Tim Young called Pfeifer's suggestion "a tremendous idea, one we would greatly encourage."
The AP post is, "Justice urges review of Ohio capital cases," via the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
Ohio’s staggering number of death row cases ought to be reviewed to determine which ones really warrant execution, a longtime state Supreme Court justice said.
Justice Paul Pfeifer, who played a major role in resurrecting Ohio’s death penalty law nearly 30 years ago, said the state has a backlog of old cases. Many of those would not have resulted in a death sentence had they been tried under current law, which gives juries the option of imposing a life sentence without the possibility of parole, he said.
“There are probably few people in Ohio that are proud of the fact we are executing people at the same pace as Texas,” Pfeifer said.
Ohio has 161 inmates on death row and is on pace to execute a state-record 11 inmates this year.
Pfeifer, a member of the state’s highest court for 17 years, said all death row cases should be reviewed to see which ones warrant execution and which ones should be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A message seeking comment was left Saturday with a spokeswoman for Attorney General Richard Cordray.
Pfeifer was one of three Republican state senators who resurrected Ohio’s death penalty law in 1981 after the old law had been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time, Pfeifer included a life without parole option in the law, but the House refused to go along. The state has since given juries that option.
Earlier coverage from Ohio on the pace of executions is in this post.
Comments