Ohio Governor Mike DeWine during his final State of the State address at the Ohio Statehouse in March 2026. (Pool photo by Adam Cairns, Columbus Dispatch.)
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wants Ohio to abolish the death penalty, but he refrained from taking any executive action on Tuesday when he held a news conference on the subject.
“It is impossible to argue today that the death penalty is a deterrent,” DeWine said. “I no longer believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. … The most effective thing in the fight against violent crime is to go after repeat violent criminals and lock the hell up, that’s effective.”
DeWine calls on Ohio lawmakers to take legislative action or put the death penalty on the ballot in Ohio for voters to decide, but DeWine said he didn’t want to front a citizen-initiated memorial.
“I don’t think (a citizen-initiated statue) is an effective route,” DeWine said. “I think in this case it’s up to the Legislature to decide whether it goes to a vote because the Legislature insists on it unless there’s a whole lot of money behind it.”
Ohio legislators have introduced bills – Ohio Senate Bill No. 133, Ohio Senate Bill No. 134AND Ohio House Bill 72 — that would abolish the death penalty, but none of the bills have been considered. Any bill that is not passed by the end of the year must be re-introduced to the up-to-date General Assembly for consideration.
There was the death penalty in Ohio reinstated in 1981 after a bill DeWine helped write was passed and signed into law.
“I thought that in some cases the death penalty could act as a deterrent, keeping some people from killing,” DeWine said. “For me, it was a moral justification for the death penalty.[…]I am responsible for this decision.”
DeWine is approaching his final months in office due to term limits and says he has not spoken to him Candidate for Governor of Ohio for the Republican Party Vivek Ramaswamy on the death penalty.
“I felt I had an obligation to explain to people why I currently believe the death penalty is not a deterrent and why I believe we should abolish it,” DeWine said.
The last execution in Ohio took place in July 2018, several months before DeWine was elected governor. DeWine halted all death sentences due to the lack of enough lethal injection drugs to carry out an execution in delayed 2020.
There are 113 prisoners on death row in Ohioit’s the fifth-largest death row population in the country, according to former Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. Capital Crimes Reportt, which was published in April.
Of the 337 people in Ohio who have received a death sentence since 1981, 56 have been executed. DeWine said 41 people died of natural causes or suicide on death row, and 89 death sentences were overturned.
DeWine said certainty and speed were two things he looked for when determining whether the death penalty was a deterrent – would the death penalty be carried out and how long would it take from sentence to execution?
“It seems that if the death penalty were to actually act as a deterrent to some people, it would have to be implemented quickly,” DeWine said. “Statistically, the likelihood of the death penalty actually being carried out is very low, and if it is carried out, it is almost certain that it will take a long, long time to carry out.”
The time elapsed between sentencing and execution ranged from 14 to 32 years for the last 10 people executed in Ohio – an average of 21 years, DeWine said. These statistics exclude people who died while awaiting execution or whose case was discontinued.
“The truth is that there is no prospect that these long delays will change significantly in the future,” DeWine said.
Ohio averaged 14.25 death sentences per year in the 1980s, 13.6 death sentences per year in the 1990s, just over five death sentences per year in the 2000s, less than four death sentences per year in 2010, and as of 2020, only two people have been sentenced to death, DeWine said.
“A murderer today is dramatically less likely to be charged with a capital crime, and the risk that he will be sentenced to death is even less likely,” DeWine said.
“Throughout my career, I have always said that the most important way to protect society is to lock up violent criminals and keep them out of society. This is a proven way to save lives and protect our citizens.”
DeWine also spoke about the victims’ families.
“But one of the sentiments that seems to be widely shared by the victims’ families is that the long, long wait for the death penalty to be carried out is frustrating and very painful for the victims,” he said.
“Any decision to officially end the death penalty in Ohio cannot change the pain and anger we all feel for these murderers, nor the deep sadness we feel for the victims and pain. These murderers ended the life of a precious human being.”
Death Penalty Executive Director Abraham Bonowitz said DeWine’s call to end the death penalty in Ohio is well-founded.
“The Legislature already knows this cannot be fixed, and if we cannot fix it, we must end it,” he said in a statement.
Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said he supports Ohio’s death penalty for “the most heinous crimes.”
“While I respect Governor DeWine’s perspective, I disagree with his conclusion that the General Assembly should eliminate the death penalty altogether,” he said in a statement.
DeWine said he respected Huffman’s opinion.
“For thousands of years, reasonable people have been on both sides of this issue,” DeWine said. “There are good people on both sides who have thought it through and tried to figure out what is right.”
Ohio Senate Minority Leader, Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, thanked DeWine for his support in the effort to abolish the death penalty.
“I have spoken to countless families and attorneys and come to understand the absolute truth: the death penalty is not justice, but rather part of a broken justice system,” she said in a statement.
“The death penalty is not an option for Ohio. We must abolish the death penalty and seek justice for families by establishing life sentences without parole, thus ending the repeated trauma of the appeals process.”
Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, told reporters in April that the death penalty is a very complicated issue.
“(It) causes a lot of emotion for a lot of people, but I imagine if it came to a vote, we wouldn’t have the votes in our Republican caucus to pass it,” he said.
He said he is personally “in the middle” when it comes to his personal position on the death penalty and sees some cases where the death penalty seems appropriate.
“I’m looking at other cases where we’ve seen people on death row who were later acquitted because there was exculpatory evidence that maybe was suppressed, and you wouldn’t want someone to go through the entire trial on death row and end up with an execution.[…]”It’s a very small minority of these cases.”
According to The Guardian, twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., do not have the death penalty Death Penalty Information Center.
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