Wrongful convictions make death penalty too risky

Gov. John Kasich has announced 27 execution dates through 2021. Until the governor can show that innocent people will not be executed, he should reconsider his decision to restart executions in Ohio.

Ohio has executed 53 people in modern history. In the same time, nine people have been exonerated from death row with evidence of their innocence. One study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, found that 1 in every 25 men currently on death row may be innocent.

Are any of the 27 who are scheduled to be executed innocent? I don’t know. You don’t know. The governor doesn’t know. That’s the problem.

I have first-hand experience with this issue. In 1984, I was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of my stepdaughter and her boyfriend in Logan. Rumors soon flew around town. After undergoing hypnosis, a single eyewitness identified me as the killer. The only other primary witness provided boot-print evidence that was later discredited.

The authorities knew about four other eyewitnesses with a completely different story about the crime, but they never shared that information with the defense, as they were constitutionally required to do. I spent seven miserable years in prison, until my conviction was reversed on appeal. I was released in 1990, but my family was under a cloud of presumed guilt for almost two decades. In 2008, another man confessed that he and a friend committed the murders.

Unfortunately, my experience is not unique. Wrongful convictions are a serious problem in our state. Fiftynine people have been exonerated after being convicted of a crime in Ohio, with over half of them wrongfully convicted of murder.

In 2014, the Ohio Supreme Court Joint Task Force on the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty published a report that included more than 50 recommendations to make the state’s death penalty system more fair and accurate. The report included reforms to increase accuracy in sentencing, reduce racial disparities and provide better lawyers for people who cannot afford them.

Three years have gone by and nothing has changed. The legislature has not implemented a single substantial reform. So expect more Dale Johnstons down the road. But don’t expect that we will catch every mistake before it’s too late. In the rush to carry out 27 back-to-back executions, someone innocent could well be on the gurney.

Executions have been on hold for three and a half years in our state. Has anyone missed them? Ohio has moreimportant priorities to focus on. Our elected leaders should be fixing the opioid crisis, improving mental-health care, helping small-business owners, and getting people better-paying jobs.

We are better off without the death penalty. One estimate said that the death penalty costs Ohio taxpayers at least $16.8 million each year. We should spend that money saving and improving people’s lives, rather than taking their lives.

For what it costs to prosecute, appeal, and carry out one death sentence, we could buy thousands of Narcan kits, which are used to counteract the deadly effects of an opioid overdose. This is no small thing: in 2015 alone, Ohio first responders administered almost 20,000 doses of the life-saving drug.

In the three-plus years since Ohio last had an execution, which was botched, lawmakers have done very little to address victims’ families’ needs or make changes to prevent wrongful convictions. Instead, the State has spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to get execution drugs. We are better than this.

Life without parole keeps the public safe and allows time to discover and correct wrongful convictions like mine. The alternative is unthinkable: the state-sponsored killing of an innocent human being. Rather than rushing to executions, the governor should be rushing to implement the reforms in the Ohio Supreme Court Joint Task Force.

I hope Gov. Kasich hears this message. That is why several exonerees from Ohio’s death row — Joe D’Ambrosio, Derrick Jamison, Kwame Ajamu, Wiley Bridgeman, and me — have started a petition at http://otse.org/kasich_ letter/. We are living proof that wrongful convictions and death sentences happen and we hope you will join us in signing this letter to the governor. Let’s leave the power of life and death in God’s hands, where it belongs.