The Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Maureen O’Connor, has ini­ti­at­ed a review of the state’s death penal­ty to deter­mine if changes should be made and ask­ing, ​“Is the sys­tem we have the best we can do?” To con­duct the study, Justice O’Connor called for a 20-per­son com­mit­tee of judges, pros­e­cut­ing attor­neys, crim­i­nal defense lawyers, law­mak­ers and aca­d­e­m­ic experts con­vened by the state’s Supreme Court and the Ohio State Bar Association. She stat­ed the review ​“will make sure the cur­rent sys­tem is admin­is­tered fair­ly, effi­cient­ly, and in the most judi­cious man­ner pos­si­ble.” The com­mit­tee will also review a 2007 report by the American Bar Association that called for a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty while prob­lems iden­ti­fied in the report were exam­ined. Another Supreme Court Justice, Paul Pfeifer, who helped write the 1981 death penal­ty law as a state sen­a­tor, has called for such a review in recent years, and has said the law should prob­a­bly be abolished.

Phyllis Crocker, inter­im dean of the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State who chaired the ABA report on the Ohio law, applaud­ed O’Connor’s announce­ment: ​“A thor­ough exam­i­na­tion of our state’s death penal­ty sys­tem was one of the goals of the 2007 ABA Death Penalty Report.”

(A. Welsh-Huggins, ​“Ohio’s top judge calls for death penal­ty review,” Associated Press, September 8, 2011). See Studies, Recent Legislation and Ohio.

UPDATE: MEMBERS OF THE STUDY COMMISSION

The Joint Task Force is chaired by the retired Hon. James A. Brogan of the Second District Court of Appeals in Dayton.

  • Sara Andrews — Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
  • Joseph T. Deters — Hamilton County Prosecutor
  • Hon. Stephen L. McIntosh — Franklin County Common Pleas Court
  • Douglas A. Berman — Ohio State University Moritz Collage of Law
  • Hon. Kathleen A. Keough — 8th District Court of Appeals
  • John P. Parker — Private practice attorney
  • Phyllis L. Crocker — Cleveland Marshal Collage of Law
  • Hon. Linda J. Jennings — Lucas County Common Pleas Court
  • Samuel H. Porter — Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur, LLP
  • Jon Paul Rion — Rion, Rion and Rion Co., LPA,
  • Sheriff Albert J. Rodenberg — Clermont County Sheriff’s Office
  • Stephen A. Schumaker — Ohio Attorney General’s Office
  • Hon. John M. Solovan — Belmont County Common Pleas Court
  • Hon. John J. Russo — Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court
  • Dennis Watkins — Trumbull County Prosecutor
  • Sen. Shirley A. Smith — Cleveland
  • Sen. Bill Seitz — Cincinnati
  • Rep. Lynn Slaby — Akron
  • Hon. W. Carlton Weddington — Ohio House of Representatives
  • Hon. Roger Wilson — Champaign County Common Pleas Court
  • Tim Young — Public Defender, Columbus
Citation Guide