DeWine on criminal justice

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has also been a prosecutor and attorney general. In both jobs, he got deeply into the details of criminal justice.

Mr. DeWine thinks another death penalty debate will get us precisely nowhere.

He admits, for example, that the death penalty, which he has always favored as a deterrent, is not a deterrent and cannot save lives if it is not swift or cannot be applied at all.

He says Stand Your Ground laws are not what we need now. We need fewer guns in the wrong hands.

He prefers two of his own proposed criminal justice reforms.

One would give judges the power to put a violent felon who has committed violence with a gun, and again acquires a gun, away for a long time. It’s a reform most Democratic mayors like, he says, because it targets the very small number of people responsible for violence in their cities.

The other clears the way for convicted felons who have cleaned up their lives to be pardoned, so they can work, coach kids’ teams and get on with their lives. An expedited process run out of the University of Akron and OhioState University law schools is connected directly to the parole boardand the governor’s office.

Some might see the first reform as “right” and the other as “left.” But that’s not how Mike DeWine thinks. He thinks in terms of what works.

His extreme pragmatism, his experience and his interest in progress, however modest, guide him.

“What works?” is the best guide to criminal justice reform.

What plays to the base, or gets headlines, is the worst.