DeWine: Lethal injection no longer an execution option
Lethal injection COLUMBUS — is no longer an option for Ohio executions, and lawmakersmust choose a different method of capital punishment before any inmates can be put to death in the future, RepublicanGov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday.
It’s “pretty clear” there won’tbe any executions next year, DeWine told The Associated Press during a yearend interview, adding he doesn’t see support in the Legislature for making a switch in execution method apriority. Ohio has an “unofficial
moratorium” on capital punishment, he said.
“Lethal injection appears to us to be impossible from a practical point of view today,” the governor said.
DeWine said he still supports capital punishment as Ohio law. But he has come to question its value since the days he helpedwrite the state’s current law— enacted in 1981 — because of the long delays between crime and punishment.
DeWine called himself “much more skeptical about whether it meets the criteria that was certainly inmy mind when I voted for the death penalty and that was that it infact did deter crime, which tomeis the moral justification.”
Messageswere left for leaders in the GOP-controlled House and Senate seeking comment.
FormerRepublicanHouse Speaker LarryHouseholder, now under federal indictment for his alleged role in a $60 million bribery scheme, questioned last year whether the state should reconsider capital punishment because of the cost andOhio’s inability to find lethal drugs.
The state’s last execution was July 18, 2018, when Ohio puttodeathRobertVanHook for killing David Self in Cincinnati in 1985.
Shortly after taking office in 2019, DeWine ordered the Ohio prison system to look at alternative lethal injection drugs. That announcement followeda federal judge’s ruling that said Ohio’s current execution protocol could cause the inmate “severe painand needless suffering.”
Opponents ofOhio’sdeath penalty called on lawmakers last month to enact a capital punishment ban during the current lame duck legislative session. They repeated that demand Tuesday.
“It’s time for the General Assembly to just end the death penalty in Ohio and repurpose the fundswasted trying to execute people into programsto better serve the needs ofmurder victim families,” said Abraham Bonowitz, Death Penalty Action director.
Also Tuesday, DeWinesaid he remains optimistic about his ability to govern Ohio despite attempts by fellow GOP lawmakers to limit his powers and even impeach him over his handling of the pandemic.
“While the few legislators that want to impeach me have gotten headlines, what has not gotten a lot of headlines is the realwork,” DeWine said.
The career politician, who has drawn strident criticism from both right and left, is hopeful about 2021 despite the pandemic surging in many parts of the state, calling next year the “year of recovery.”
When asked whether he had any regrets about decisions he made in the past nine months, DeWine said does not have the luxury to reflect when there is so much work left to do.
“There will be time to reflect on that, there will be books written, therewill PhDs and dissertations on the whole pandemic and that’s fine but we’re in the battle now,” he said.