"Analysis: Divisions mark Ohio death penalty panel," is by AP Legal Affairs Writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins, via the Modesto Bee. Here's an extended excerpt from the beginning:
The task always seemed like a tall one: sit prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and academic experts around a table and ask them to propose changes to Ohio's death penalty law.Not that the gathered assembly wouldn't come up with ideas. But rather, that nothing resembling a unified voice could emerge from the variety of opinions.
The committee, now deep into its second year of work, made three recommendations June 13 — involving geography, race and the makeup of the law itself — that underscore divisions on the panel.
These differences raise the possibility that committee members will deliver separate and competing reports to Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, in turn raising questions about what, if any, impact the committee's suggestions will have.
Without basic consensus, "the weight of those recommendations would be substantially weakened, and would lose their effect," said committee member Stephen Schumaker, deputy Attorney General for law enforcement.
Although Schumaker remains confident the committee can pull together a unified report, the votes from a June meeting show just how divided the panel is — even when several members don't make the meeting.
In one vote at the June meeting, the committee recommended that the current death penalty law be restricted based on the types of crimes eligible for capital punishment. The 12-2 vote called for stripping aggravated arson, burglary, robbery, rape and kidnapping from the list of added factors that can elevate an aggravated murder to a case calling for the death sentence.
Instead, the factors would be limited to crimes meant to focus on the worst of the worst criminals: those who kill multiple victims, a child under 13 or a police officer; or those who kill to escape detection or eliminate a witness.
All things being equal, five of the last ten inmates executed in Ohio would not have faced the death penalty had such a rule been in place.
Earlier coverage of the Ohio study commission begins at the link. More information is at the Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio's Death Penalty website.
Also available, other Ohio news coverage.
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