COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is reviewing death row cases that may have gone awry in the legal process, he said. The anti-capital punishment Republican said he is using one of his last acts as governor to save lives.
There are currently 104 inmates on death row, but some may be getting walked back into life without parole.
"The power of a governor to commute a sentence, to do something, goes back to the beginning of this country," DeWine said Thursday.
With DeWine in charge, Ohio has had an unofficial pause on capital punishment.
"It's power to be exercised very carefully, and that's what I'm trying to do now as I go through these cases," he continued.
On Monday, we asked him if he is planning on any forms of clemency for death row inmates. He explained he is reviewing the state’s cases, seeing who to commute to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In his summer address, DeWine laid out the case against capital punishment.
"I no longer believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder," DeWine said in June. "The moral justification I had for voting for the death penalty simply no longer exists."
In 1981, DeWine was the architect of the current death penalty law in the state. Now, he said it is a broken system, one that costs the state hundreds of millions despite not having executed anyone since 2018. He adds that research shows that the death penalty isn’t a deterrent to crime, plus the punishment draws out the legal process for victims' families.
There have also been a dozen death row exonerations.
DeWine had asked the lawmakers to step in, to stop it. Republican leaders are not on board.
"I will vigorously oppose getting rid of the death penalty," House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said when asked earlier this year about the governor's long-awaited announcement.
With that option off the table, DeWine is making use of his executive power as one of his last acts as governor.
As a former prosecutor and attorney general, the governor said that lawyers and a jury can think a case has been ruled correctly, but that may not be accurate.
"The governor has additional authority to look at that and maybe see something else that is in there with that individual or with that particular case that maybe the jury legally couldn't have looked at or the judge legally couldn't have looked at," DeWine said.
In the spring, DeWine commuted the sentence of a man with intellectual disabilities from death row to life in prison with no parole.
RELATED: Ohio Gov. DeWine takes man with intellectual disabilities off death row
There have been five other removals from death row since January, according to Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections reports. Three were resentenced to life by courts and two others died, which goes back to another one of the governor’s points.
"The odds of the death penalty actually being carried out are very low," he said in June.
That fact is also why some Republicans want to restart capital punishment.
"You look at some of the most heinous, reprehensible cases that we see that wind up with somebody being placed on death row, and they say in those circumstances, 'How are you going to deny that kind of punishment?'" Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoelon) said.
McColley, unlike more outspoken supporters of the death penalty, sits in the middle of the debate: knowing in some cases it is warranted, but worrying about making sure all the evidence is there.
House lawmakers, like state Rep. Phil Plummer (R-Dayton), have been trying to find ways to restart the lethal injection process. He proposed legislation to allow for nitrogen gas to be used to kill inmates.
But incoming governor Dr. Amy Acton is following in DeWine’s footsteps.
"I will be continuing the moratorium," Acton said in October.
DeWine added that he doesn't plan on doing a blanket commutation for every inmate, like California Governor Gavin Newsom did this month.
If he commutes, the governor will likely start with Ohio Parole Board recommendations.
In August, the Board recommended clemency for Tyrone Noling, citing that there was too much uncertainty in his case. The board found that other suspects weren't investigated, and all the co-defendants who blamed Noling recanted.
Follow Statehouse and Columbus bureau reporter Morgan Trau on X, Instagram and Facebook. Email her at Morgan.Trau@wews.com.
