New Podcast: Republican State Representative Jean Schmidt on Her Efforts to Abolish the Death Penalty in Ohio

In the December 2021 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Death Penalty Information Center Deputy Director Ngozi Ndulue inter­views State Representative Jean Schmidt (pic­tured) about her work as a pri­ma­ry spon­sor of a bill in the Ohio House of Representatives that would abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. A long-time Republican elect­ed offi­cial, Rep. Schmidt also served in the U.S. House of Representatives for ten years. She avid­ly sup­port­ed the death penal­ty ear­ly in her career but now is an advo­cate for crim­i­nal jus­tice reform. Ndulue and Schmidt dis­cuss the Republican party’s and Schmidt’s own evolv­ing views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, its myr­i­ad eco­nom­ic and emo­tion­al costs, mis­takes in the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem, and pub­lic safe­ty. Says Schmidt, ​“the death penal­ty is cre­at­ing more vic­tims than the crime itself.”

Schmidt and Ndulue talk about erod­ing pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty. The rise of media crit­i­cal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has made the pub­lic more aware of its social con­se­quences, Schmidt said, encour­ag­ing pros­e­cu­tors to less fre­quent­ly seek cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. She sees a sim­i­lar move­ment away from the death penal­ty with­in the Republican par­ty. Cost is a major fac­tor, as the fis­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive choice is abo­li­tion, but Schmidt sees the issue tran­scend­ing par­ti­san­ship. ​“This is a human rights issue,” she insists. ​“And if we val­ue life, and many con­ser­v­a­tives are pro-life, then how do you dis­sect the death penal­ty from that?” Polls indi­cate that 48% of Ohio Republicans approve replac­ing the death penal­ty with life in prison, while only 37% dis­ap­prove. Schmidt calls the poll results a promis­ng indi­ca­tor that ​“the major­i­ty of Republicans want to end the death penalty.”

In addi­tion to the finan­cial costs, Schmidt not­ed that crime vic­tims face ​“an emo­tion­al cost that we need to rec­og­nize” when par­tic­i­pat­ing in cap­i­tal tri­als and appeals. The rep­re­sen­ta­tive expressed empa­thy for fam­i­ly mem­bers and prison guards who reg­u­lar­ly inter­act with death-row pris­on­ers and are emo­tion­al­ly affect­ed by their loss. ​“The social cost, the emo­tion­al cost when they leave death row can be very telling on those guards,” explains Schmidt. She ulti­mate­ly believes that life in prison would be an ade­quate alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty. ​“Putting them away for the rest of their life [in] a prison sys­tem that is not a coun­try club by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion. I think it is a fair and just punishment.” 

Schmidt has long con­sid­ered her­self to be pro-life, but believed ear­li­er in her career that those who com­mit­ted ​“hor­ren­dous crimes” were ​“excep­tions” to the sanc­ti­ty of life. It was only after meet­ings with prison exoneree Tyra Patterson and death-row exoneree Joe D’Ambrosio that she saw that exe­cu­tions did not serve as a deter­rent, but instead allowed a mis­take-prone sys­tem to impose an irrev­o­ca­ble pun­ish­ment. In Schmidt’s view, propos­ing reg­u­la­tions or laws to pre­vent inno­cent peo­ple from incar­cer­a­tion can­not work in a legal sys­tem that often pre­vents jus­tice from being served to defen­dants. Schmidt and Ndulue dis­cuss Anthony Apanovitch, who spent 33 years on death row and was freed in 2015 when a court vacat­ed his con­vic­tion because of excul­pa­to­ry DNA evi­dence. In 2018, he was returned to death row because of a tech­ni­cal­i­ty in Ohio law that required him to request the DNA test­ing. ​“Because he messed up that appeals process,” says Schmidt, ​“we may nev­er get anoth­er swing at the bat. That’s what’s wrong with the system.” 

Schmidt’s views also changed as she grew con­cerned about mar­gin­al­ized groups fac­ing inad­e­quate tri­als. While racial bias­es affect tri­als, Schmidt says that ​“it is also a socioe­co­nom­ic fail­ure” of the state to fail to pro­vide defen­dants with fair tri­als. Defendants who can­not afford their own lawyer must rely on a pub­lic defend­er, who, Schmidt explains, ​“might be a bril­liant indi­vid­ual, but they’re con­strained by their own small office, the fact that we pay them up to $60 an hour… And the fact that they have to ask per­mis­sion for expert wit­ness­es, that they’re con­strained by an arti­fi­cial $25,000 amount of mon­ey to do the case.” 

Schmidt speaks at length to the dis­par­i­ties in pay and legal auton­o­my between the pros­e­cu­tor and pub­lic defender’s offices. The for­mer is con­sis­tent­ly bet­ter staffed, bet­ter paid, and rarely will­ing to admit mis­takes in court cas­es. ​“We have a prob­lem with the legal sys­tem,” says Schmidt, “[where] there is no account­abil­i­ty for pros­e­cu­tors or detec­tives, who with­hold evi­dence [or] malign issues.” 

Ultimately, Schmidt sees her work on the abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as a way to make com­mu­ni­ties safer while ensur­ing jus­tice for all par­ties. Instead of mul­ti­ple decades lan­guish­ing on death row, pris­on­ers will be able to face the con­se­quences of their crimes for the rest of their nat­ur­al lives. The only impact of remov­ing the death penal­ty will be that pris­on­ers will have to ​“come to terms with them­selves and God”, which can lead to char­ac­ter devel­op­ment that an exe­cu­tion would have denied them. And in the event that there has been a wrong­ful con­vic­tion, Schmidt is sat­is­fied know­ing that life in prison pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the defen­dant to receive jus­tice. ​“As long as they have a pulse,” con­cludes Schmidt, ​“we can give them the right that they deserve to have a life that’s free.”