Entries tagged with “Elwood Jones

Methods of Execution

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Apr 09, 2026

Two Reports from Ohio Draw Starkly Different Conclusions about the Future of the State’s Death Penalty System

Ohio’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem has come into sharp focus with the release of two reports that exam­ine four decades of the state’s death penal­ty record and draw stark­ly dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions about the future of Ohio’s death penal­ty. On March 30, Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE) pub­lished *Beyond Reasonable Doubt: Confronting the Wrongful Conviction Crisis in the State of Ohio*, doc­u­ment­ing the record of mis­takes and errors that result­ed in 12 exon­er­a­tions.​“The death…

Dec 17, 2025

Ohio Prosecutors Dismiss Case Against Elwood Jones Nearly 30 Year After Wrongful Conviction

Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich for­mal­ly dis­missed the case against Elwood Jones on December 12, 2025, end­ing a near­ly 30-year saga that saw Mr. Jones spend 27 years on Ohio’s death row for a mur­der he did not com­mit.​“I did not take this extra­or­di­nary step light­ly,” said Prosecutor Pillich.​“But after review­ing the evi­dence, I am not con­vinced that Mr. Jones killed Rhoda Nathan.” Mr. Jones was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1996 for the 1994 mur­der of Rhoda…

Sep 09, 2025

Ohio Appeals Court Rules Prosecutors Cannot Use Witness Testimony in Retrial of Elwood Jones

In late August 2025, the First District Court of Appeals of Ohio ruled that Hamilton County pros­e­cu­tors can­not use pri­or wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny in their retri­al of Elwood Jones, who was on Ohio’s death row for 27 years until he was grant­ed a new tri­al in December 2022. Mr. Jones was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of Rhoda Nathan in a Blue Ash, Ohio, hotel in 1994, despite con­sis­tent­ly main­tain­ing his inno­cence. In 2022, Hamilton County Common Pleas Court…