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Columbus
Dispatch...
Reps request
halt of executions
2 legislators write to Kasich as task
force evaluates policy
By Alan Johnson
October
17, 2011
Two
state lawmakers urged Gov. John
Kasich yesterday to declare a moratorium on executions until an Ohio
Supreme
Court task force completes a review of the use of capital punishment.
“Now
more than ever, we believe there
are flaws in Ohio’s death sentence that must be addressed,” Democratic
state
Reps. Ted Celeste of Columbus and Nickie J. Antonio of Lakewood said in
a
letter to Kasich.
“We
applaud your leadership in
commuting two Death Row inmates to life without parole,” the lawmakers
continued. “We respectfully request a moratorium on the execution of
any Death
Row inmates while the Joint Task Force is deliberating and
contemplating the
policies of the death penalty.”
Celeste
and Antonio are sponsors of
House Bill 160, legislation that would end capital punishment in Ohio.
The
lawmakers said five Ohio inmates
who spent a combined total of 81 years on Death Row have been
exonerated in
recent years.
Kasich
spokesman Rob Nichols said the
administration does not take a position on every bill introduced.
However, he
added, “The governor supports the death penalty.”
Last
month, Chief Justice Maureen
O’Connor of the Ohio Supreme Court announced she would convene a task
force to
look at the state’s death penalty to make sure it is administered
fairly and
efficiently. A panel of about 20 judges, prosecutors, defense
attorneys,
legislators and academics being put together by the court and Ohio
State Bar
Association will focus how the law is being used — not whether it
should be
abolished.
Ohio
has executed 45 men since
reinstituting the death penalty in 1999.
Since
becoming governor in January,
Kasich commuted the death sentences of two convicted killers and
allowed four
others to be executed.
There
is one more execution scheduled
this year. Reginald Brooks of Cuyahoga County, who murdered his three
sons in
1982, is to be lethally injected on Nov. 15. Others are on the calendar
in 2012
and 2013.
Read
this and other articles at the
Columbus Dispatch
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