NEW VOICES: Ohio Supreme Court Justice Testifies for Death Penalty Repeal

On December 14, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer (pic­tured) tes­ti­fied before the state’s House Criminal Justice Committee, urg­ing law­mak­ers to over­turn the death penal­ty law he helped write as a state sen­a­tor 30 years ago. 

Justice Pfeifer said, ​“The death penal­ty in Ohio has become what I call a death lot­tery,” cit­ing fac­tors such as the loca­tion of the crimes and the atti­tudes of indi­vid­ual coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors as vari­ables affect­ing whether the death penal­ty is pur­sued in a giv­en case. He con­tin­ued, ​“It’s very dif­fi­cult to con­clude that the death penal­ty, as it exists today, is any­thing but a bad gam­ble. That’s real­ly not how a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem should work.” 

As a sit­ting jus­tice, Pfeifer has con­tin­ued to issue deci­sions in death penal­ty cas­es and to set exe­cu­tion dates under the law. Of his role, he said, ​“I have a duty under the law to fol­low that law. At the same time, we are admon­ished under the rules that apply to judges that we have a duty to step for­ward and advo­cate for changes we think would lead to an improve­ment in the law.” 

Among oth­ers tes­ti­fy­ing at the hear­ing on a bill to repeal the death penal­ty was Dale Johnston, who spent sev­en years on death row for the mur­der of his daugh­ter and her boyfriend. The state Supreme Court over­turned his con­vic­tion, and anoth­er man is now serv­ing a life sen­tence for the crimes. Johnston not­ed that, like many peo­ple, he sup­port­ed the death penal­ty before his wrong­ful con­vic­tion. ​“I nev­er imag­ined that I or anoth­er inno­cent man could be on death row, but it hap­pened to me. If it hap­pened to me, it could hap­pen to anyone.”