Ohio Supreme Court Justice William O’Neill recent­ly vot­ed to strike down the death penal­ty, when he dis­sent­ed in an order set­ting an exe­cu­tion date for Jeffrey Wogenstahl. Justice O’Neill wrote, ​“I would hold that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment vio­lates the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Article I, Section 9 of the Ohio Constitution. The death penal­ty is inher­ent­ly both cru­el and unusu­al and there­fore is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Capital pun­ish­ment dates back to the days when decap­i­ta­tions, hang­ings, and brand­ings were also the norm. Surely, our soci­ety has evolved since those bar­bar­ic days.…To date, 17 states and the District of Columbia have elim­i­nat­ed the death penal­ty alto­geth­er. It is clear that the death penal­ty is becom­ing increas­ing­ly rare both around the world and in America. By def­i­n­i­tion it is unusu­al.” He con­clud­ed, ​“The time to end this out­dat­ed form of pun­ish­ment in Ohio has arrived. While I rec­og­nize that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is the law of the land, I can­not par­tic­i­pate in what I con­sid­er to be a vio­la­tion of the Constitution I have sworn to uphold.”

(State v. Wogenstahl, 2013 Ohio 164 (January 25, 2013) (Case announce­ments #2) (O’Neill, J., dis­sent­ing)). Wogenstahl’s exe­cu­tion date was set for May 14, 2015. See New Voices.

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