Ohio

History of the Death Penalty

Until 1885, exe­cu­tions were car­ried out by pub­lic hang­ings, which were con­duct­ed by indi­vid­ual coun­ties. In 1885, death row and exe­cu­tions were moved to the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. The elec­tric chair was first used in Ohio in 1897 and was used to exe­cute 312 men and 3 women. The last per­son exe­cut­ed with the elec­tric chair was Donald Reinbolt in 1963.

Timeline

1885 — Ohio leg­is­la­ture requires that all exe­cu­tions per­formed with­in the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio, must be con­duct­ed by hanging.

1897 — Ohio first used the elec­tric chair. Electrocution replaces hang­ing and is seen as a more humane method of execution.

1963 — Donald Reinbolt becomes the last per­son to be exe­cut­ed with the electric chair.

1974 — Ohio rein­states the death penal­ty fol­low­ing Furman v. Georgia.

1991 — Governor Richard Celeste com­mutes sen­tences of eight death row pris­on­ers due to evi­dence of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in sentencing.

2001 — Ohio elim­i­nates elec­tro­cu­tion as a method of exe­cu­tion, leav­ing lethal injec­tion as the only avail­able method of execution.

2010 — Ohio pass­es the DNA Access Bill to curb wrongful convictions.

2014 — Ohio botch­es the exe­cu­tion of Dennis McGuire by lethal injec­tion. The state used an untried drug cock­tail com­posed of the seda­tive mida­zo­lam and the painkiller hydromorphone.

2015 — The FDA warms Ohio not to import sodi­um thiopen­tal from over­seas for use in executions.

2017 — Federal Magistrate Judge Michael R. Merz rules that Ohio’s three-drug lethal injec­tion pro­to­col is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al due to intol­er­a­ble risk of seri­ous harm in vio­la­tion of the 8^th Amendment.

2017 — The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit revers­es Federal Magistrate Judge Michael R. Merz’ deci­sion to say exe­cu­tions in Ohio due to constitutionality concerns.

2019 — In response to Ohio’s three-drug exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, Governor Mike DeWine halts all exe­cu­tions until the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction can devel­op a new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col that gains approval from the courts.

2021 — Ohio bans the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty on defen­dants who are severe­ly men­tal­ly ill at the time of the offense.

2023 — The Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee held its first hear­ing on Senate Bill 101 that, if passed, would abol­ish the state’s death penalty.

Famous Cases

Sandra Lockett was sen­tenced to death for her involve­ment in a rob­bery and mur­der. At the time, Ohio’s statute allowed judges in cap­i­tal cas­es to con­sid­er only three mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors. If none of those fac­tors were found in a case, the defen­dant had to be sen­tenced to death. Lockett’s case was appealed to the Supreme Court. In Lockett v. Ohio (1978), the Court ruled that the sen­tencer in a cap­i­tal case ​“not be pre­clud­ed from con­sid­er­ing, as a mit­i­gat­ing fac­tor, any aspect of a defen­dan­t’s char­ac­ter or record and any of the cir­cum­stances of the offense that the defen­dant prof­fers as a basis for a sen­tence less than death.” Lockett’s sen­tence was overturned.

Richard Cooey chal­lenged Ohio’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, say­ing that it would cause a severe­ly painful death. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reject­ed his claim, and Cooey was exe­cut­ed on October 14, 2008.

Romell Broom was con­vict­ed of kid­nap­ping and mur­der in 1984 and sen­tenced to death. His exe­cu­tion was sched­uled for September 15, 2009. The exe­cu­tion team spent two hours search­ing for a suit­able vein for Broom’s lethal injec­tion, but failed to insert the IV. During the pro­ce­dure, Broom tried to assist the team in find­ing a vein, but they were still unable to do so. The prison direc­tor con­tact­ed Governor Strickland, who issued a stay of exe­cu­tion in order to allow the state to eval­u­ate the lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure. Broom remains on Ohio’s death row.

Notable Exonerations

Joe D’Ambrosio was exon­er­at­ed in 2012, 23 years after he was con­vict­ed. A fed­er­al District Court had first over­turned D’Ambrosio’s con­vic­tion in 2006 because the state had with­held key evi­dence from the defense. The fed­er­al court orig­i­nal­ly allowed the state to re-pros­e­cute him, but just before tri­al the state revealed the exis­tence of even more impor­tant evi­dence and request­ed fur­ther delay. Additionally, the state did not divulge in a time­ly man­ner that the key wit­ness against D’Ambrosio had died. In 2010, the District Court barred D’Ambrosio’s re-pros­e­cu­tion because of the pros­e­cu­tors’ mis­con­duct. On January 23, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the state’s appeal in the case, thus end­ing the capital case.

Timothy Howard and Gary Lamar James were sen­tenced to death in 1976 for a bank rob­bery in Columbus, Ohio, in which one of the bank guards was killed. Both men were released from prison in 2003 after new evi­dence was uncov­ered. Conflicting wit­ness state­ments and pre­vi­ous­ly unknown fin­ger­print evi­dence led the Franklin County pros­e­cu­tor to dis­miss all charges against Howard and James.

On November 21, 2014, Ricky Jackson and Wiley Bridgeman were released from prison. Prosecutors filed a motion to drop charges against Jackson, Bridgeman, and their co-defen­dant, Kwame Ajamu (for­mer­ly Ronnie Bridgeman), who had been released, but not exon­er­at­ed, in 2003. A judge offi­cial­ly dis­missed the charges against Jackson and Bridgeman on November 21, and against Ajamu on December 9.

The three men had been con­vict­ed of a 1975 mur­der on the tes­ti­mo­ny of a 12-year-old boy, who recent­ly recant­ed, say­ing he had not wit­nessed the mur­der at all. All three defen­dants were sen­tenced to death. Upon his release, Jackson said, ​“The English lan­guage doesn’t even fit what I’m feel­ing. I’m on an emo­tion­al high. You sit in prison for so long and think about this day but when it actu­al­ly comes you don’t know what you’re going to do, you just want to do something.”

Following his release, Bridgeman said, ​“The bit­ter­ness is over with; I car­ried that too long.” Jackson’s and Bridgeman’s 39 years in prison is the longest time between con­vic­tion and exon­er­a­tion of any of those exon­er­at­ed. Since 1973 there have been 149 exon­er­a­tions of peo­ple sen­tenced to death in the U.S. includ­ing eight in Ohio. Kwame Ajamu remarked, ​“I was sen­tenced to die, as was Ricky and my broth­er. We were 17, 18, and 20. For a crime we didn’t do.”

Notable Clemencies

In 1991, Ohio Governor Richard Celeste com­mut­ed the sen­tences of eight inmates on Ohio’s death row, cit­ing a ​“dis­turb­ing racial pat­tern” in sentencing.

Milestones in Abolition/​Reinstatement

Ohio rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1974, but the law was struck down as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 1978. The cur­rent law went into effect in 1981.

HB 160, a death penal­ty abo­li­tion bill, was intro­duced by Rep. Ted Celeste in the 129^th General Assembly on March 15, 2011.

Ohio ​“Firsts”

Ohio was the first state to adopt a one-drug exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. Ohio was also the first state to change from the one-drug pro­to­col of sodi­um thiopen­tal to pentobarbital.

In 2010, Ohio passed a sweep­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice reform bill to curb wrong­ful con­vic­tions called the DNA Access Bill (128^th GA, SB 77).

Other Interesting Facts

“Old Sparky,” as the elec­tric chair came to be known, claimed the lives of 315 killers between 1897 and 1963, begin­ning with William Haas, 17, of Hamilton County and end­ing with Donald Reinbolt, 29, of Columbus.

Ohio had three botched exe­cu­tions in a four-year period:

Joseph Clark (May 2006)

Christopher Newton (May 2007)

Romell Broom (September 2009)

Although Ohio rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1974, it did not resume exe­cu­tions until 1999.

Resources

• American Bar Association Ohio Death Penalty Assessment
• Ohioans to Stop Executions
• Department of Corrections
• Ohio Parole Board Clemency Reports
• Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association
• Public defend­er’s office
• Victims’ ser­vices
• 2015 Year-End Statement from Ohioans to Stop Executions

Ohio Execution Totals Since 1976