COLUMBUS: An Ohio Supreme Court justice who helped write the state’s death penalty law testified Wednesday the law isn’t working and should be scrapped.
Justice Paul Pfeifer said the law was meant for the worst of the worst offenders but has been used more haphazardly over time.
“The statute does not work the way we expected,” Pfeifer told the House Judiciary Committee. “What has enfolded is an application that is hit or miss depending on where you commit the crime and the attitude of the prosecutor in that county.”
Pfeifer urged the committee to approve a bill that would scrap the 30-year-old law. He said laws enacted in 1996 and 2005 that provide the option of life in prison without parole have made capital punishment unnecessary, especially now that Ohio executes inmates by injection.
“A comfortable easy death is less punishment than life in prison without parole,” Pfeifer said.
The chances of the bill passing are slim, given continued support of capital punishment in Ohio by both Republicans and Democrats.
The number of death sentences has also plummeted in Ohio and nationwide as fewer capital cases are brought because of life without parole.
Hearings on the bill come as a state Supreme Court task force studies Ohio’s law to make sure it works as it should.
But Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has made it clear that the task force shouldn’t consider a ban on capital punishment.
Rep. Ron Young, a Republican from northeastern Ohio, questioned whether banning capital punishment as the harshest punishment would lead to softer punishments down the road.
“My concern is if we eliminate the death penalty and deal strictly with life without parole, that that will begin to erode as well,” Young said.
The anti-death penalty bill is sponsored by two Democratic state lawmakers.
