Ohio's Death Penalty: History and Current Developments

Resumen

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I. Introduction . A. Death Penalty in Ohio. B. The Death Penalty Process in Ohio. 1. Guilt and Sentencing Phases. 2. The Appeals Process. III. Recent Developments in Ohio's Death Penalty . A. Wilford Berry - The "Volunteer". B. J.D. Scott - The Mental Illness Issue. C. Legislation to Prohibit the Execution of the Mentally Retarded. D. John Byrd - Elimination of the Electric Chair. IV. Future Implications for the Death Penalty in Ohio . A. Eliminating the chair or eliminating the fear? . B. Legislation Regarding the Execution of Mentally Retarded Defendants. V. Conclusion .

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Extracto

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Ohio's Death Penalty: History and Current Developments

I. Introduction .

This comment will take a comprehensive look at the death penalty in Ohio. First, it will discuss the background and history of the death penalty in the state. Second, it will focus on the factors and influences which have shaped the current death penalty policy in Ohio, and the re-emergence of executions within the state over the last several years. Third, the comment will discuss several recent developments surrounding the death penalty in Ohio. This includes issues presented by the executions which resumed in 1999, a recent amendment to Ohio's death penalty statute to eliminate the electric chair as a choice for execution, and current legislative and judicial efforts to prohibit the execution of mentally retarded criminals in Ohio. Finally, the comment will analyze these current developments and proposals in light of current state and national attitudes and trends to predict the likely course Ohio's death penalty policy will take in the future.

This comment is both important and relevant because Ohio's death penalty statute has become a controversial topic since Ohio began executing death row inmates again in 1999.1 In addition, several legislative proposals are currently under review in Ohio and major developments are also taking shape on the national front.2 This comment will be informative to attorneys and other individuals interested in the current state of Ohio's death penalty policy, as well as the most prominent influences that will shape Ohio's death penalty policy in the future. Furthermore, a thorough review of current issues and attitudes surrounding the death penalty in Ohio serves as a microcosm of the development of death penalty issues on the national scene.

A. Death Penalty in Ohio.

The history of Ohio's death penalty dates back to Ohio's earliest days of statehood.3 From the time Ohio was established as a state in 1803 until 1885, executions were carried out by public hanging in the county where the crime was committed.4 In 1885, Ohio's state legislature enacted the first statewide statute regulating the administration of executions in the state.5 Hanging remained the sole method of execution for Ohio prisoners sentenced to death, but the new statute centralized the operation of capital punishment in Ohio by requiring all executions to be carried out at the state penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio.6 Between 1885 and 1897, a total of twenty-eight convicted murderers were executed by hanging at the state penitentiary in Columbus.7

In 1897, a new era of capital punishment began in Ohio, as the electric chair was introduced and touted as a more humane method of executing convicted criminals sentenced to death.8 The concept for the electric chair came about several years earlier when Alfred Southwick, a dentist in Buffalo, New York, proposed the idea after watching a drunken man stagger into an electrical generator and die both quickly and apparently painlessly.9 Subsequently, New York was the first state to adopt the electric chair, and the device was first used in 1890 in a prison in Auburn, New York to execute William Kemmler, a convicted murderer from Buffalo who had butchered his wife with an ax.10 Eyewitness accounts state that the first jolt left Kemmler twitching and alive, and that he was not successfully put to death until a second sustained charge was applied to his body.11 Nevertheless, the electric chair was perceived at the time as advancement in the area of humane executions, and its use expanded rapidly to a majority of states as a replacement for the traditional methods of death by hanging and firing squad.12

Between the adoption of the electric chair as Ohio's sole method of execution in 1897 and the final death by electrocution in 1963, a total of 312 men and women were put to death by the electric chair.13 William Haas, a seventeen year-old man from Hamilton County, was the first person to be executed in Ohio's electric chair in 1897.14 Charles Justice, a broom maker incarcerated at the penitentiary for robbery and burglary, was asked to assi...

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