Over the past two years, Ohio has exe­cut­ed more inmates than any oth­er state except Texas. Since resum­ing exe­cu­tions in 1999, Ohio has exe­cut­ed 38 peo­ple, more than any oth­er state out­side of the South in that time peri­od. As in the South, race appears to play a sig­nif­i­cant role in who receives the death penal­ty. In the Ohio cas­es result­ing in an exe­cu­tion, 75% of the vic­tims in the under­ly­ing mur­der were white. Generally, in Ohio about 65% of mur­der vic­tims are black (Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services-2005), but those cas­es are not result­ing in a sim­i­lar per­cent­age of exe­cu­tions. Of the 57 vic­tims in cas­es result­ing in an exe­cu­tion, only 11 (19%) were black. Moreover, none of the 38 exe­cu­tions in Ohio involved a white defen­dant who killed a black vic­tim. On the oth­er hand, at least 7 black defen­dants have been exe­cut­ed for mur­der­ing a white victim.

Geography also appears to play a key role in the death penal­ty in Ohio. Almost half (45%) of Ohio’s exe­cu­tions have been from just 3 of the state’s 88 coun­ties: Hamilton (includ­ing Cincinnati), Cuyahoga (Cleveland), and Summit (Akron). These 3 coun­ties com­prise only about 23.4% of the state’s pop­u­la­tion. (2006 U.S. Census estimate).

(Posted May 14, 2010; based on DPIC Execution Database and Ohio crime and pop­u­la­tion sta­tis­tics, as not­ed). See Race and Arbitrariness.

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