Ohio Executions Scheduled for 2017 – 2022

For more information about upcoming executions, see DPIC’s Upcoming Executions page, which is regularly updated on business days.

Ohio had scheduled 27 executions to take place between July 2017 and September 2020. 
The first execution took place July 26, 2017.

On September 1, 2017, the Governor revised the dates in 19 of the 26 scheduled executions, which pushed out the dates through April 2022.

On February 19, 2019, Governor Mike DeWine announced that Ohio will not carry out any of the scheduled executions until it devises a new execution protocol that is approved by the courts. Since that time, he has been granting reprieves and rescheduling executions for a later date.
 

In July 2017, DPIC looked at how geog­ra­phy, race, and sen­tenc­ing alter­na­tives played a role in these cas­es. Based on the facts we reviewed, we found:

• GEOGRAPHY: Two-thirds (18 of 27) of the death sen­tences were con­cen­trat­ed in just 3 of Ohio’s 88 coun­ties: Hamilton (7); Lucas (6); and Cuyahoga (5). In DPIC’s 2013 Report, The 2% Death Penalty, we found that 2% of the coun­ties in the U.S. account for more than half of all the pris­on­ers on death row nation­wide and for more half of all the exe­cu­tions that have been car­ried out in the coun­try since exe­cu­tions resumed in the 1970s. These three Ohio coun­ties are among the 2% of coun­ties respon­si­ble for most of the pris­on­ers on death row, and Hamilton and Cuyahoga coun­ties are among the 2% of coun­ties that account for a major­i­ty of the exe­cu­tions in the U.S.
• RACE: 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 con­demned pris­on­ers — James Frazier, who is black — was tried in 2005 by an all-white jury in Lucas County. Toledo is the coun­ty seat and accord­ing to the 2010 cen­sus, African Americans con­sti­tut­ed more than 27% of its pop­u­la­tion. But, in Frazier’s case, only 3 of the 44 prospec­tive jurors were black. The pros­e­cu­tor used peremp­to­ry strikes to remove 2 of those jurors (the record does not indi­cate what hap­pened to the third black prospec­tive juror), and Frazier’s jury ulti­mate­ly end­ed up with no black jurors.
• SENTENCING ALTERNATIVES: If a defen­dant was charged with an aggra­vat­ed mur­der that occurred before July 1, 1996, the sen­tencer was not per­mit­ted to impose life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole as a sen­tence alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty. The only alter­na­tive sen­tence to death were life with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after a term of years. Of the 27 men who have an exe­cu­tion sched­uled between 2017 and 2022, 16 (61.54%) were sen­tenced based on a law that meant if death was not imposed, then the defen­dant could pos­si­bly be released at some point in his life.

The avail­abil­i­ty of life with­out parole as a sen­tenc­ing option clear­ly made a dif­fer­ence in jury deter­mi­na­tions of life or death in Ohio. Capital cas­es for pre-July 1, 1996 mur­ders con­tin­ued to go to tri­al for sev­er­al years after Ohio amend­ed its sen­tenc­ing statute, but by 2000 vir­tu­al­ly all of the new death sen­tences were cas­es in which juries had been pro­vid­ed a life-with­out-parole option. As in Texas, Virginia, and Georgia, when juries were giv­en the life-with­out-parole option, the num­ber of death sen­tences dropped sharply. From 1990 – 1999, Ohio imposed an aver­age of 12.7 death sen­tences per year. From 2000 – 2009, that aver­age fell by two-thirds, to 4.3 death sen­tences per year. This leaves lit­tle doubt that many of the men and women juries sen­tenced to death before life with­out parole was avail­able as an alter­na­tive would not have been sen­tenced death under the amend­ed statute. Indeed, for­mer Cuyahoga County District Attorney Tim McGinty made this very point in April 2014, advo­cat­ing that the death sen­tence imposed on Arthur Tyler, who McGinty had pros­e­cut­ed, be com­mut­ed. At that time, McGinty acknowl­edged that life with­out parole was suf­fi­cient sanc­tion for Tyler and that ​“the absence of the option of a sen­tence of life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole in this case may have led to the impo­si­tion of the death sentence.”

After the Ronald Phillips exe­cu­tion, the Fair Punishment Project reviewed the remain­ing cas­es for each of the men sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed, and pub­lished a report detail­ing the fol­low­ing find­ings regard­ing the con­demned pris­on­ers’ backgrounds:

• At least* 17 out of the 26 men expe­ri­enced seri­ous child­hood trau­ma – hor­ri­fy­ing instances of exten­sive phys­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse of the type known to have long-term effects on brain devel­op­ment and mental health.
• At least* 11 have evi­dence of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, bor­der­line intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, or a cog­ni­tive impair­ment, includ­ing brain injury.
• At least* 6 men appear to suf­fer from a mental illness.

According to the Project’s find­ings, many of these men fall with­in sev­er­al of these cat­e­gories. Also, three of the men were con­vict­ed of crimes that occurred when they were under the age of 21— ​“a peri­od dur­ing which an individual’s brain, espe­cial­ly the sec­tion relat­ed to impulse con­trol and deci­sion-mak­ing, is still unde­vel­oped.” DPIC also not­ed that 12 (or 46.15%) of these men were under the age of 25 at the time of the crime for which they were sen­tenced to death, a peri­od dur­ing which neu­ro­sci­en­tists say the pre-frontal cor­tex of the brain is still maturing.

*The Project uses the term at least ​“because three of these men waived the pre­sen­ta­tion of mit­i­ga­tion at their tri­als. And sev­er­al had lawyers who con­duct­ed lit­tle to no inves­ti­ga­tion at both the tri­al and post-con­vic­tion phase or failed to seek the assis­tance of psy­chol­o­gists and oth­er experts, despite the pres­ence of famil­ial men­tal ill­ness, which is often hered­i­tary. Therefore, in those cas­es, we know very lit­tle about exist­ing impair­ments, even though exe­cu­tion dates are looming.”