REPORT: Most of the 26 Prisoners Facing Execution in Ohio Through 2020 Severely Abused, Impaired, or Mentally Ill

Almost all of the 26 men sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Ohio over the next three years suf­fer from men­tal, emo­tion­al, or cog­ni­tive impair­ments or lim­i­ta­tions that raise ques­tions as to whether they should have been sen­tenced to death, accord­ing to a new report released August 30 by Harvard’s Fair Punishment Project. While the U.S. Constitution requires that the death penal­ty be reserved for the worst crimes and the worst offend­ers, the report—Prisoners on Ohio’s Execution List Defined by Intellectual Impairment, Mental Illness, Trauma, and Young Age—says that, instead, these pris­on­ers ​“are among the most impaired and trau­ma­tized among us.” The report says Ronald Phillips, whom Ohio exe­cut­ed July 26, was ​“19 at the time he com­mit­ted his crime, had the intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing of a juve­nile, had a father who sex­u­al­ly abused him, and grew up a vic­tim of and a wit­ness to unspeak­able phys­i­cal abuse – infor­ma­tion his tri­al lawyers nev­er learned or pre­sent­ed to a jury.” It says at least 17 of the 26 oth­er con­demned pris­on­ers Ohio seeks to exe­cute between September 2017 and September 2020 expe­ri­enced seri­ous child­hood trau­ma, includ­ing ​“phys­i­cal abuse, sex­u­al abuse, neglect, and expo­sure to seri­ous vio­lence”; at least 11 have evi­dence of ​“intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, bor­der­line intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, or a cog­ni­tive impair­ment, includ­ing brain injury”; and at least 6 ​“appear to suf­fer from a men­tal ill­ness.” Jessica Brand, the Project’s Legal Director, describes what has hap­pened in these cas­es as a ​“hor­ri­ble tri­fec­ta” in which ​“peo­ple who are the most impaired received some poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion at some time in their cas­es and then are fac­ing the most severe penal­ty pos­si­ble.” The Ohio Alliance for a Mental Illness Exemption from the death penal­ty, which is sup­port­ing an Ohio bill seek­ing to ban the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment against the severe­ly men­tal­ly ill, issued a press state­ment in which they not­ed that two of the pris­on­ers are so men­tal­ly ill that they should be cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly exempt­ed from the death penal­ty. A Death Penalty Information Center review of Ohio’s 2017 – 2020 sched­uled exe­cu­tions shows that more than 60% of the exe­cu­tion war­rants are direct­ed at pris­on­ers who were sen­tenced to death before Ohio had adopt­ed its life-with­out-parole sen­tenc­ing option and jurors had to weigh the death penal­ty against the risk that a pris­on­er would be released back into soci­ety. Mirroring trends repeat­ed across the coun­try, death sen­tences fell dra­mat­i­cal­ly in Ohio when the state amend­ed its death-penal­ty law to make life with­out parole avail­able as a sen­tenc­ing alter­na­tive. Death sen­tences dropped by 2/​3rds in the state over the next decade, from an aver­age of 12.7 per year to 4.3. The data sug­gests that juries would like­ly have treat­ed evi­dence of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, men­tal ill­ness, or behav­ioral prob­lems aris­ing from chron­ic abuse and trau­ma very dif­fer­ent­ly if they had assur­ances that the defen­dants would not lat­er be released if sen­tenced to life. 

DPIC has launched a new web­page ded­i­cat­ed to the sched­uled exe­cu­tions in Ohio, exam­in­ing how geog­ra­phy, race, and sen­tenc­ing alter­na­tives played a role in these cas­es. Two-thirds of the death sen­tences were con­cen­trat­ed in just three of Ohio’s 88 coun­ties, and those three coun­ties were among the 2% of U.S. coun­ties respon­si­ble for more than half of all pris­on­ers on death rows across the coun­try. Of the 27 men who have been or are sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed, 14 are white and 13 are black. All 14 white men were con­demned for killing white vic­tims, where­as 38% of the black men (5 of 13) were con­demned for inter­ra­cial mur­ders of white vic­tims. At least one of the black pris­on­ers — James Frazier — was con­demned to death in Lucas County in 2005 by an all-white jury, even though its largest city, Toledo, is more than 25% black. In Frazier’s case, the pros­e­cu­tor used peremp­to­ry strikes to remove 2 of the 3 black peo­ple in the pan­el of 44 prospective jurors.

For DPIC’s Analysis of the Ohio Death Warrants, read our new web­page, Ohio Executions Scheduled for 2017 – 2020.