Ohio’s 2022 Capital Crimes Report Calls State Death Penalty a ​‘Broken System’

On March 31, 2023, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost released the state’s annu­al Capital Crimes report for 2022. According to the report, the aver­age time pris­on­ers spend on the state’s death row before an exe­cu­tion date is set is near­ly 21 years – a num­ber that has con­sis­tent­ly increased with each annu­al report. Even when an exe­cu­tion date is set, a pris­on­er ​“is more like­ly to die of sui­cide or nat­ur­al caus­es than as a result of exe­cu­tion,” due to the ongo­ing dif­fi­cul­ty in obtain­ing lethal injec­tion drugs. The report esti­mat­ed that it has cost the state between $128 mil­lion and $384 mil­lion to impose the death penal­ty on the cur­rent 128 prisoners. 

The Executive Summary of the offi­cial report pre­pared by Yost — a death-penal­ty pro­po­nent — described the state’s death penal­ty as a ​“bro­ken cap­i­tal-pun­ish­ment sys­tem” pro­duc­ing ​“churn, waste, and end­less law­suits and noth­ing else.” Moreover, ​“It is a sys­tem that is not fair­ly, equal­ly or prompt­ly enforced, and because of that it invites dis­trust and dis­re­spect for the rule of law.”

The report not­ed that out of the 341 death sen­tences orig­i­nal­ly imposed since 1981, just one in six (56) have been car­ried out with an exe­cu­tion. ​“Nearly the same num­ber of inmates have had their sen­tences com­mut­ed (21) or died of nat­ur­al caus­es or sui­cide before the sen­tence could be imposed (38). Nine have been removed because they are intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and there­fore con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. Three have been removed because they suf­fered from seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. Thirty-nine addi­tion­al men­tal ill­ness peti­tions were filed in 2022,” the report stated. 

The report con­clud­ed: ​“this sys­tem is a tes­ta­ment to gov­ern­ment impo­tence. At a time when faith in society’s insti­tu­tions is at an all-time low, the fail­ure of the cap­i­tal-pun­ish­ment sys­tem could be Exhibit A.”