Two recent reports from Ohio high­light­ed the decline in the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in that state. On March 30, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office released its annu­al report on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Attorney General’s report not­ed three new death sen­tences, one com­mu­ta­tion, and one exe­cu­tion in Ohio in 2014, down from the state’s peak of 17 death sen­tences in both 1995 and 1996. It also report­ed that Ohio juries have imposed four or few­er death sen­tences in each of the last four years. On the same day, Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE) issued a com­ple­men­tary report. In addi­tion to the data from the Attorney General’s report, OTSE empha­sized the exon­er­a­tions of Ricky Jackson, Kwame Ajamu, and Wiley Bridgeman in 2014. The three for­mer death row inmates were sen­tenced to death in 1975 based upon the coerced false eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny of a 12-year-old boy. The OSTE report also dis­cussed changes to Ohio’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col in the wake of the botched exe­cu­tion of Dennis McGuire, which result­ed in the post­pone­ment of all exe­cu­tions in Ohio until 2016. Finally, the report dis­cussed the 56 reform rec­om­men­da­tions released last year by the Supreme Court Joint Task Force on the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty, which include mea­sures to reduce wrong­ful con­vic­tions, ban the death penal­ty for defen­dants with severe men­tal ill­ness, and reduce racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in sentencing.

(“Capital Crimes Annual Report,” Ohio Attorney General’s Office, March 30, 2015; ​“A Crumbling Institution: Why Ohio Must Fix or End the Death Penalty,” Ohioans to Stop Executions, March 30, 2015.) See Studies and Ohio.

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