Two recent reports released in Ohio show a decline in the use of the death penal­ty, with one of the reports rais­ing con­cerns about the fair­ness of the sys­tem. The num­ber of death-penal­ty cas­es filed in Ohio in 2013 was the low­est num­ber in over 30 years. The num­ber of cap­i­tal indict­ments was down 28% from 2012 and 63% from 2011, accord­ing to a report from Ohioans to Stop Executions, ​“The Death Lottery: How Race and Geography Determine Who Goes to Ohio’s Death Row.” Ohio had 4 death sen­tences in 2013, com­pared to 24 in 1985. The report not­ed con­cerns about arbi­trary appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty, even as the num­ber of cas­es decreased: ​“While Ohio’s over­all use of the death penal­ty is slow­ing, it has become clear­er … that the race of the vic­tim and loca­tion of the crime are the most accu­rate pre­dic­tors of death sen­tences,” the report stat­ed. Almost 40% of all cap­i­tal indict­ments in Ohio come from just one coun­ty (Cuyahoga), which rep­re­sents just 11% of the state’s pop­u­la­tion. Nearly 77% of the exe­cu­tions in the state involved cas­es where the mur­der vic­tim was white, despite the fact that gen­er­al­ly 66% of mur­der vic­tims in Ohio are peo­ple of col­or. A report from Ohio’s Attorney General Office, ​“Capital Crimes Annual Report,” indi­cat­ed that 52 inmates have been exe­cut­ed since 1981, while 126 death-row inmates had their sen­tences reduced or died of natural causes.

(A. Johnson, ​“Ohio still adding to Death Row pop­u­la­tion,” Columbus Dispatch, April 2, 2014; ​“The Death Lottery: How Race and Geography Determine Who Goes to Ohio’s Death Row,” Ohioans to Stop Executions, April, 2014; ​“Capital Crimes Annual Report,” Ohio Atty. Gen. Ofc., April 1, 2014). See Arbitrariness and Studies.

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