Ohio announces death penalty taskforce

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor yesterday announced the formation of a new joint task force to review the state's death penalty law and determine if changes should be made, but with an important caveat: It won't debate whether Ohio should have capital punishment.

“A 2005 review of 20 years of capital punishment data by The Associated Press concluded that death sentences varied widely depending on where in the state charges were brought,” USAToday.com reported this morning.

“As it stands,” USAToday said, “the state is the midst of an unofficial death penalty moratorium while a federal judge decides whether the policies Ohio follows for carrying out executions are constitutional. Three executions have already been postponed and on Thursday defense attorneys filed a motion to delay an execution scheduled for next month.”

The 20-member task force convened by the Supreme Court and the Ohio State Bar Association, will consist of judges, prosecuting attorneys, criminal defense lawyers, lawmakers and academic experts, who will review Ohio's current laws, practices elsewhere, data and costs, as well as a 2007 report released by the American Bar Association that called for a moratorium while problems the report said it had identified were examined. ( Report )( executive summary )

In 2001, the American Bar Association created its Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project to carry out its goal of a nationwide moratorium unless and until problems within the administration of capital punishment are rectified. “Through research, outreach, and education, the Moratorium Project encourages jurisdictions to undertake a comprehensive examination of their capital punishment laws and processes in order to eliminate identified flaws and to suspend executions while undergoing this process,” ABA says.

“Several state assessment reports have recommended undertaking moratoriums on executions until the state appropriately addresses the recommendations contained within it. In each assessed capital jurisdiction, the actual practices of the capital jurisdiction is compared to a series of recommendations on the administration of the death penalty, based on the original ABA Protocols on the Administration of Capital Punishment (2001) and the revised version (2010)”… Although several states have conducted limited reviews or studies, only Illinois has conducted the type of review that the ABA has concluded is essential to identify and address core problems in the administration of the death penalty. Illinois abolished capital punishment March 9, 2011.

Ohio and Indiana are among the eight states having completed assessments, with Kentucky and Missouri currently being worked on.