Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, family members of murder victims, and Death Row exonerees urge Ohio lawmakers to abolish capital punishment:
“The death penalty in Ohio has become what I call a death lottery,” Pfeifer told the House Criminal Justice Committee. “The application is hit or miss depending on where you happen to commit the crime and the attitude of the prosecutor in that county.”
He added: “I believe Ohio is no longer well served by our death-penalty statute. It should be repealed.”
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Derrick Jamison was freed after 17 years for the 1984 murder of Cincinnati bartender Gary Mitchell. Dale Johnston was exonerated in 1990 after serving seven years for the dismemberment slayings of his daughter, Annette Cooper, and her friend Todd Schultz.
Jamison tearfully recounted the death of his mother and father while he was in prison. “I am not a statistic. I am a person, a child of God who did not deserve the death penalty,” he said.
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Lawrence Herman, a former Ohio State University law professor, said he thinks capital punishment should be repealed, in part because innocent people are wrongfully convicted.
“It’s certainly likely … that we have executed several persons that were factually innocent,” Herman said.
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“Thirty-five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court brought back the death penalty, reasoning that judges and juries could be provided with enough guidance to identify the offenders most deserving of capital punishment,” said Dale Johnston, who was wrongly convicted of the 1982 murder of his daughter and her boyfriend and spent seven years behind bars. “After three and a half decades of experimentation, it is time to admit the obvious: If the ultimate punishment cannot be applied fairly, it should not be applied at all.”
The Dec. 14 hearing included comments from Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, one of the authors of the death penalty law on the books in Ohio, who now opposes capital punishment.
“Is Ohio well served by the death penalty at this point in time?” he asked. “… We tried to make sure that it would only be applied to the worst of the worst. I’m here today to testify and indicate to you I believe Ohio is no longer well served by our death penalty statute and it should be repealed.”
The Supreme Court justice also said data indicate capital punishment does not deter violent crimes.
“If you look at the data from states that don’t have it, you see roughly the same number of murders, aggravated murders,” he said. “So it’s impossible to make a case that the death penalty deters anyone.”
