"Ohio's vanishing stock of execution drugs is yet another sign that it's time to eliminate the death penalty in Ohio," is the the Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial.
There's a reason most doctors won't administer the lethal drugs now used to execute prisoners under sentence of death. It's the same reason Ohio is about to run out of pentobarbital, the current drug of choice on Death Row: Most medical professionals and many of those who manufacture drugs do not want to participate in the taking of a human life.
Ohio's depleted stock of death-penalty drugs is yet another reason why Ohio and other states that still execute prisoners should reconsider on moral, ethical, legal and practical grounds.
Pentobarbital is essentially the same drug used to put many animals to sleep. Like other drugs previously used for human executions, how humanely it executes a grown man (or woman) has never been systematically studied.
And:
It is time to end the death penalty and the inequities and injustices it fosters, including the impact it has on those who must carry it out, along with all the other practical, moral and ethical problems it engenders.
The Lima News publishes an OpEd by Al O'Dell, "Now is the time for Ohio to end death penalty."
In recent weeks there have been several articles in The Lima News regarding the death penalty.
Gov. John Kasich, notwithstanding the recommendation of the prosecutor, denied clemency to Billy Salgle (July 25). A few days later, Salgle hung himself in his cell.
An attorney argued before the state Supreme Court that his client should not be executed “because the cost of execution would be an unnecessary burden for tax payers” (Aug. 22).
A state congressman, who wants to extend the death penalty to cover some sex-related crimes has said: “I’ve always had the opinion that for some of those people there’s no cure. They just need to be put to death” (Aug. 18).
None of these instances, however, raises the more fundamental question: should we not abolish the death penalty entirely?
Numerous studies have shown that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to crime, it is extremely costly, and irreversible mistakes have been and will continue to be made. Innocent people have been put to death, others have spent years on death row before being exonerated. Those reasons alone should be enough to call for an abolition of the death penalty.
There is, however, a more basic reason — the dignity of all human life, and a sense of restorative justice.
Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.
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