Although the num­ber of exe­cu­tions in Ohio in the past two years is sec­ond only to those in Texas, there is con­sid­er­able sup­port in Ohio for a review of the entire sys­tem. Two for­mer prison direc­tors, Reginald Wilkinson and Terry Collins, agree that death row cas­es should be reviewed to decide whether they are the ​“worst of the worst.” Wilkinson (pic­tured), who was direc­tor from 1991 to 2006 and wit­nessed many exe­cu­tions, would take it even fur­ther: ​“I’m of the opin­ion that we should elim­i­nate cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” he said. ​“Having been involved with jus­tice agen­cies around the world, it’s been some­what embar­rass­ing, quite frankly, that nations just as so-called civ­i­lized as ours think we’re bar­bar­ic because we still have cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” Earlier this year, Ohio passed leg­is­la­tion aimed at pre­vent­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions. The law requires the preser­va­tion of crime scene evi­dence and aims to reduce faulty eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions. The bil­l’s spon­sor, Republican State Senator David Goodman, said an inde­pen­dent review of death row cas­es and a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions would also help pre­vent wrong­ful con­vic­tions. ​“It was astound­ing to see what was pre­sent­ed to me in terms of mis­tak­en iden­ti­fi­ca­tion in crim­i­nal cas­es. I am not anti-death penal­ty, but if there is any­thing we can do to make sure we are not exe­cut­ing the wrong man, we should do it.”

Clemency pro­ceed­ings for Kevin Keith were held in Ohio on August 11. Many promi­nent Ohio lead­ers sup­port­ed a com­mu­ta­tion of his death sentence.

(M. Wagner and A. Johnson, ​“Timeout from death?,” The Columbus Dispatch, August 8, 2010. See Innocence and New Voices.

Citation Guide