Over half of lawmakers who were in the state legislature when Ohio’s death penalty statute was passed in 1981 have died. But nearly half of those who are still alive have signed onto a letter calling for a repeal of the law they helped create.
The death penalty statute was Senate Bill 1. It passed with bipartisan support after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Ohio’s previous capital punishment law in 1978. It was approved 23-10 in the Senate on June 30, 1981, then went on to pass the House the next day 71-28.
University of Akron Law School professor emerita Marge Koosed interviewed more than three-quarters of the 57 living lawmakers starting in 2021. Two of the lawmakers she spoke to have since passed away.
"Of the 44 that I interviewed, 27 of them indicated that they wanted to sign a letter that would—as their colleagues Jim Petro, Bob Taft and Lee Fisher pointed out—reflect the lessons learned here: that the death penalty system that we have is utterly broken, cannot be fixed, and should be simply abolished. Or, if you will, repeal the death penalty law they helped to write," Koosed said in an interview.
From 1999 to 2007, Republican former Gov. Bob Taft oversaw the first 24 executions under the 1981 statute. In 2021, he joined Republican former Attorney General Jim Petro and Democratic former AG Lee Fisher in an op-ed against the death penalty. Taft's successor, Democratic former Gov. Ted Strickland, has also spoken out against capital punishment, following his four-year term during which the state carried out 17 executions.
Former Gov. John Kasich and current Gov. Mike DeWine were both Republican state senators when they voted for the death penalty statute in 1981. There were 15 executions during Kasich's eight years in office, including the most recent one in July 2018. Kasich has never stated support or opposition to Ohio's death penalty. There have been no executions under DeWine, who said in 2019 that executions wouldn't happen as Ohio's lethal injection process had been ruled cruel and unusual punishment. Since then, he's said the state has had trouble getting lethal injection drugs and that the legislature needs to change the law if they want executions to go forward. But DeWine has not publicly stated an opposition to the death penalty.
Some of the former lawmakers Koosed interviewed had voted against the statute in 1981, including Democratic former Rep. Gene Branstool of Utica. But others who now support repeal voted for the law then, including Republican former Reps. Charles (Rocky) Saxbe of Mechanicsburg and Tom Johnson of Cambridge, and Democratic former Rep. Mike Stinziano of Columbus.
Koosed said others she reached didn’t support a full repeal, but she said all those she spoke to had concerns about the death penalty in Ohio.
"Mistakes that have been made in the system make it clear that you can't trust the system to maintain fair, accurate, reliable results," Koosed said.
She added that the money spent on the death penalty—from the initial costs of a capital indictment to the expense of the trial to the guaranteed appeals process—is a problem for some former lawmakers.
"The cost of maintaining the system is insane," Koosed said. "It is millions and millions of dollars, as the Attorney General has recently pointed out, and we have not received any benefit in exchange for that."
Attorney General Dave Yost, who is a supporter of the death penalty in Ohio, has also said the way it's applied is costing the state as much as $350 million a year. He added in his 2024 Capital Crimes report: "It is a system that fails to deliver on the promise of justice for victims and their families, while wasting millions of taxpayer dollars."
There are three bills to abolish capital punishment in Ohio. Two of them are bipartisan, both sponsored by Sen. Steven Huffman (R-Tipp City) and Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood). Antonio has proposed a ban on executions in every two-year session since 2011. There's also a House bill to abolish the death penalty from Republican Reps. Jean Schmidt (R-Loveland) and Adam Mathews (R-Lebanon).
There’s also a Republican-backed bill to add nitrogen gas as an execution method since lethal drugs can’t be found. Yost testified in favor of that bill earlier this month. DeWine has granted reprieves to all death row inmates whose execution dates were approaching since he took office. His most recent two reprieves are set for 2029, which is after his term ends.
