"Should all death row inmates be there?" is the title of Sharon Coolidge's report in the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer helped write Ohio's death penalty law in 1981, lifting the moratorium on state-sanctioned killing.
Now, with 29 years perspective and 160 killers sitting on Ohio's death row, Pfeifer is asking: should everyone on death row be on death row?
Pfeifer, a Republican running for re-election unopposed, is calling for the creation of a commission to review all death row cases.
The commission would determine whether anyone should be spared death and given a life sentence with no chance for parole.
It also would make clemency recommendations to the governor, the only person who can grant clemency.
Pfeifer suggested it be convened after the November election in an effort to take politics out of the decision-making process as much as possible.
"I think it's highly improbable that all 160 folks on death row will be executed," Pfeifer said. "Seems to me, the sooner somebody takes a look at this in a fashion that gives the governor some political cover, the better."
Pfeifer's suggestion comes on the heels of the state parole board's recommendation that Gov. Ted Strickland grant clemency to Richard Nields, who has been on death row 12½ years.
Nields, 60, of Springfield Township, was convicted in Hamilton County for the March 27, 1997, beating death of 59-year-old Patricia Newsome, who had broken off their long-term relationship.
Strickland's decision on Nields is pending, but it has to come before June 10 - when Nields is scheduled to be put to death.
The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the execution, but Pfeifer dissented, saying Newsome's murder did not fit the type of aggravated murder intended when the death penalty was reinstated.
And:
Pfeifer said there has been a dramatic drop in the number of people put on death row.
Across the state last year, only one person was sentenced to die.
This year so far two people have been sentenced to death, both out of Hamilton County, both convicted of killing more than one person.
Compare that to the '90s, when the number twice reached double digits.
"That tells us something about the changing attitude of both our prosecutors and our citizens," Pfeifer said.
In the early 1980s, Pfeifer, then a state senator, was one of three Republican senators who revived the death penalty.
Pfeifer, 67, whom the Ohio Judicial Center describes as the kind of justice who keeps in mind how the court's decisions affect people seeking justice, is in his third term on the Ohio Supreme Court.
So far this year, Ohio has executed five people. Six more executions are scheduled - one per month through November.
That could break the 2004 record of seven executions. Texas is the only state that has executed more people this year than Ohio, with seven.
"I doubt very many people in Ohio want to execute people at the same rate as Texas," Pfeifer said.
"That is not something we necessarily should be proud of."
In the last seven years, the parole board has recommended clemency four times. It's been granted three times, including to two Hamilton County killers.
Earlier coverage of the proposal begins here.
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