Prominent lead­ers in Ohio are call­ing for a com­pre­hen­sive review of the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem, par­tic­u­lar­ly as an exe­cu­tion nears for a man whose guilt is being seri­ous­ly ques­tioned. Kevin Keith (pic­tured) has been on Ohio​’s death row for over 15 years and has an exe­cu­tion date of September 15. But new evi­dence has arisen about the unre­li­a­bil­i­ty of those who orig­i­nal­ly tes­ti­fied against him. Ohio’s gov­er­nor, Ted Strickland, recent­ly said Keith’s case, ​“has cir­cum­stances that I find trou­bling. We are look­ing at that case very seri­ous­ly.” A clemen­cy hear­ing is sched­uled for August 11. Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, who played an influ­en­tial role in rein­stat­ing Ohio’s death penal­ty law in 1981 as a Republican state sen­a­tor, is now lead­ing the call for a review of Ohio’s sys­tem. Other offi­cials express­ing sim­i­lar con­cerns include two for­mer prison direc­tors, Reginald A. Wilkinson and Terry Collins, and two oth­er promi­nent Republicans: for­mer Attorney General Jim Petro and state Sen. David Goodman of New Albany. Petro said, ​“We should show restraint, cau­tion and dili­gence with these cas­es. DNA has opened a lot of peo­ple’s eyes with what it can do. When you are talk­ing about death, you can’t afford to make even one mistake.”

(M. Wagner and A. Johnson, ​“Timeout from death?,” The Columbus Dispatch, August 8, 2010. See Innocence and New Voices.

Citation Guide