COLUMBUS, Ohio — As Ohio House Bill 392 makes its way through the legislature, Jewish leaders have signed a letter opposing "the use of gas to suffocate prisoners to death as a new form of execution."
The letter points out that Jewish tradition has complicated and contradictory teachings on the death penalty; while the Torah permits capital punishment, the Talmud imposes severe limits on the practice.
However, the letter was not penned with the intention of protesting the death penalty in Ohio, but rather the method for which officials — including Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost — have expressed support: nitrogen hypoxia.
"We do not suggest comparisons to the atrocities of Nazi Germany under which millions of our relatives were murdered, many by suffocation in sealed chambers," reads the letter opposing the bill. "Still, we cannot imagine it possible that Jewish communities anywhere could stand by while prisoners are executed in our names, using any variation of that mechanism."
The letter addresses all legislators on the House Government Oversight Committee, including Bill Seitz and Dani Isaacsohn, who represent districts in the Greater Cincinnati area.
HB-392, sponsored by Republican state Reps. Brian Stewart and Phil Plummer, would give condemned inmates a choice between lethal injection and nitrogen gas, but would require nitrogen gas be used if lethal injection drugs are not available.
Ohio hasn’t executed anyone since 2018. In 2020, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine declared lethal injection “no longer an option,” citing a federal judge’s ruling that the protocol could cause inmates “severe pain and needless suffering.”
Still, nitrogen hypoxia may not provide less suffering; the method, used for the first time in Alabama in January, was implemented through a face mask and resulted in a 22-minute-long execution during which the inmate appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney.
As of Tuesday morning, over 35 members of the Jewish community in Ohio, including Rabbis and Cantors, had signed the letter ahead of a 1 p.m. hearing during which testimony on HB 392 would be heard by the House's government oversight committee. Of those who signed the letter, six were from the Greater Cincinnati region.
