(The Center Square) – Democrats and Republicans in the Ohio Statehouse have again joined to try to stop the death penalty in the state.
Democratic Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, and Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, announced Tuesday a plan to reintroduce legislation to abolish capital punishment and replace it with life without parole for capital crimes.
Ohio has not carried out a death sentence in more than five years. The death penalty was reinstated in the state in 1981.
From 1981 through the end of 2023, 336 people have received a combined 341 death sentences in Ohio. Fifty-six of those have been carried out.
There are 119 inmates on death row.
“It is time for the state of Ohio to take the pragmatic and economically prudent step to abolish the death penalty,” Antonio said. “Capital punishment is impractical, unjust, inhumane, and erroneous. We stand together – progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans – seeking an end to executions in Ohio. The time to improve our flawed justice system is now.”
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine began a moratorium on Ohio executions in 2019 when he first took office and has said last year he did not expect any to take place throughout the end of his term in 2027.
In 2020, DeWine said the state could not get lethal injection drugs and told lawmakers they would have to find a different method to put inmates to death.
The state’s last execution came July 18, 2018, when Robert Van Hook was put to death by lethal injection for killing a man he met at a Cincinnati bar in 1985.
Similar legislation has been introduced in the Legislature for many years, gaining more bipartisan support each time. Huffman and Antonio introduced the same bill during the last session, but it received just one hearing.
Huffman said the death penalty should be abolished for moral and financial reasons.
“I am committed to preserving the dignity of all life until natural death,” Huffman said. “The fiscal and moral challenges associated with capital punishment are also the reason it needs to be abolished in the state of Ohio.”
Attorney General Dave Yost has consistently pushed back against efforts to eliminate the death penalty, issuing a report in September that pushed for its return.
As previously reported by The Center Square, Yost and Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, called for the resumption of carrying out death sentences after Alabama executed a man using nitrogen gas in late January 2024. That bill did not receive a hearing.
