Ohio Black Churches and Legislative Black Caucus Join Push to Abolish the State’s Death Penalty

Building on what they describe as grow­ing momen­tum to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and greater aware­ness of racial jus­tice con­cerns, a coali­tion of Ohio African-American church and leg­isla­tive lead­ers are putting their weight behind bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion to repeal the state’s death penalty.

In a May 18, 2021 press con­fer­ence at the state capi­tol in Columbus, the Ohio Council of Churches and the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus called on the leg­is­la­ture to pass House Bill 183 and Senate Bill 103, death-penal­ty abo­li­tion bills that were intro­duced in February with spon­sor­ship from both Republicans and Democrats. Linking the death penal­ty to his­tor­i­cal pat­terns of racial oppres­sion and lynch­ing and empha­siz­ing its con­tin­u­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact upon com­mu­ni­ties of col­or, the Black Caucus announced that death penal­ty repeal leg­is­la­tion will be its top pri­or­i­ty of the 2021 – 2022 legislative session. 

Caucus Vice President State Rep. Juanita Brent (D – Cleveland, pic­tured) said that both bills are attract­ing increased sup­port among Republicans but car­ry spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for the Black com­mu­ni­ty. ​“It’s dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ing African American com­mu­ni­ties,” Brent said. ​“This is not how we need to address and deal with justice.” 

Brent crit­i­cized the death penal­ty as an inef­fec­tive pub­lic safe­ty pol­i­cy. ​“Death penal­ties are not deter­ring peo­ple from crimes, if it was like that then we would have no one doing crimes,” she said. ​“People hav­ing access to afford­able hous­ing, mak­ing sure peo­ple have access to pub­lic tran­sit, jobs that pay a liv­ing wage. That’s what deters crime, not the death penalty.” 

Rep. Stephanie Howse (D – Cleveland) empha­sized how wrong­ful use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has accen­tu­at­ed racial injus­tice. ​“The dis­trict I rep­re­sent falls with­in Cuyahoga County, which has the appalling rep­u­ta­tion for the sec­ond most wrong­ful death sen­tences in the nation,” Howse said. ​“Of the six inno­cent men that were sent to death row from Cleveland, five of them were Black. We can no longer ignore that Black lives are con­sis­tent­ly deval­ued by a jus­tice sys­tem that should ide­al­ize fair­ness and accu­ra­cy. I am proud to stand with my col­leagues today as we call for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Ohio.”

Rev. Dr. Jack Sullivan, Jr., exec­u­tive direc­tor of Ohio Council of Churches, called the death penal­ty ​“eth­i­cal­ly bank­rupt.” ​“Executions add fire to fire,” Sullivan said. ​“They exac­er­bate the cycle of death and force the state to sur­ren­der its moral and eth­i­cal high ground as it lives in a clear and present con­tra­dic­tion, say­ing on one hand how much it val­ues lives while on the oth­er hand can­cel­ing lives through exe­cu­tions.” Sullivan’s sis­ter was mur­dered in 1997, and the crime remains unsolved. While he said he hopes for jus­tice in his sister’s case, he does not sup­port the death penal­ty. ​“Executions don’t show we’re tough on crime. They just show we are peo­ple who are capa­ble of killing,” he said, ​“which puts us in the same orbit as those who are con­vict­ed of the crimes themselves.”

The effort to abol­ish Ohio’s death penal­ty comes at a time in which pub­lic sen­ti­ment is already mov­ing away from the prac­tice. The state has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since 2018, as a result of prob­lems with its lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col, and Governor Mike DeWine has said he believes no exe­cu­tions will be car­ried out as long as the cur­rent pro­to­col is in place. In January, the state banned the death penal­ty for peo­ple who were severe­ly men­tal­ly ill at the time of the offense. That bill, the first of its kind in the nation, passed with strong bipar­ti­san sup­port, as well as the back­ing of men­tal health advo­cates. A poll con­duct­ed in fall 2020 found that a major­i­ty of Ohioans (51%) sup­port replac­ing the death penal­ty with life without parole.