The Ohio Attorney General​’s Office recent­ly released its annu­al Capital Crimes Report, ana­lyz­ing the state’s death penal­ty cas­es and death row pop­u­la­tion. In 2009, there was only one death sen­tence hand­ed down in Ohio, mir­ror­ing a nation­wide trend of declin­ing death sen­tences. This was the fewest death sen­tences in a year since Ohio rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty. The report indi­cat­ed that over half of the cur­rent death row pop­u­la­tion of 160 inmates are African-American (51%), while Caucasians make up rough­ly 44%. The aver­age age of the death row inmates in Ohio is 45, and they have spent an aver­age of 14 years on death row. In recent his­to­ry, the major­i­ty of removals from death row have been for rea­sons oth­er than exe­cu­tion. While there have been 33 exe­cu­tions (now 36) since 1981, 52 inmates received life sen­tences after appeal and remand, anoth­er 11 had their sen­tences com­mut­ed to life by the gov­er­nor, and 7 were sen­tenced to life after a men­tal retar­da­tion deter­mi­na­tion. Another 20 inmates died of nat­ur­al caus­es while they were on death row. View the full report here.

(“2009 Capital Crimes Annual Report,” Ohio Atty. Gen. Office (Richard Cordray), pub­lished April 1, 2010; post­ed April 15, 2010). See also Death Row and Sentencing. Click here to view Studies and Additional Resources on the death penalty.

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