The for­mer Director of Ohio Prisons, Terry Collins, recent­ly urged Gov. John Kasich to spare the life of Clarence Carter, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on April 12 for the mur­der of anoth­er inmate. Carter killed the inmate dur­ing a jail­house fight in 1988. Collins, who had 30 years of expe­ri­ence work­ing with pris­on­ers, dis­cussed whether this crime mer­it­ed the death penal­ty, ​“It is much more like­ly that this was an inmate fight that got trag­i­cal­ly out of hand. Inmate-on-inmate vio­lence in lock­ups is often pur­sued to estab­lish one­self as fear­some and to deter oth­ers from threat­en­ing or attack­ing the inmate.” He also said there is no evi­dence that Carter planned to kill Allen dur­ing the fight. Collins wit­nessed 33 exe­cu­tions dur­ing this tenure, which includ­ed being head of the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

After his retire­ment in 2010, Collins said he opposed the death penal­ty because he feels it can­not be admin­is­tered fair­ly, is expen­sive and offers no second chances.

(A. Johnson, ​“Past pris­ons chief urges clemen­cy for con­demned killer,” Columbus Dispatch, March 29, 2011). See New Voices and Arbitrariness.

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