This episode originally aired on July 1, 2026.
Governor DeWine wants to abolish the death penalty in Ohio.
It’s a movement that’s gaining momentum nationally, but one that’s fraught with moral, religious and political considerations. Not to mention economic ones, too.
But where you come down on the issue depends on what justice looks like to you.
And the answer isn’t that simple. We’re peeling back the layers surrounding the debate on this hour of All Sides.
Guests:
- Julie Carr Smyth, government and politics reporter, The Associated Press
- Kevin Werner, executive director, Ohioans to Stop Executions
- Rev. Dr. Crystal Walker, co-chair, Ohioans to Stop Executions
- Louis Tobin, executive director, Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. Governor Mike DeWine wants to abolish the death penalty in Ohio. It's a movement that's gaining momentum nationally, but one fraught with moral, religious, and political considerations, not to mention economic ones too.
But where you come down on the death penalty depends on what justice looks like to you. And the answer isn't that simple. We're peeling back some of the layers today and we start with journalist Julie Carr Smyth, who covers government and politics for the Associated Press, where she has covered the ups and downs of Ohio's death penalty. Welcome back to All Sides, Julie.
Julie Carr Smyth: Nice to be here.
Amy Juravich: So, Julie, the lead of your story last month put it this way, Governor Mike DeWine used his bully pulpit to call for an end of the death penalty. Now, he is term limited. He's a lame duck governor. He said he would talk about the death penality back in January. Then he waited months before having a press conference in June. So is he really using a bully pulpet if he waited that long to make an announcement?
Smyth: Well, you know, he had charts, he had graphs, he went before the public in a way that tried to appeal to, I think, statistics and logic. He explained in a very detailed way how he himself had helped oversee the death penalty and carry it out over many decades.
And so I interpreted it that he was yes, he wanted to go forward. He could have issued a press release. He could simply talk to lawmakers behind the scenes and not even come out with his own personal opinion. But he tried to appeal to those who still in this state think a lot of him as one of the most popular and often elected politicians in Ohio with his opinion.
Juravich: Now, he's not exactly been in lockstep with his own Republican Party on this issue, or President Trump, who's a staunch supporter of the death penalty. So, politically, does he have muscle to get the legislature to move on this issues? No. No.
Smyth: And as I did report a little bit, he is technically, he's the titular head of the Ohio Republican Party. He's the top of the ticket in this state, but he's had a lot of divisions with his own party, parted ways. It has been moving steadily to the right in the Trump era, and he has stayed pretty well.
More toward the moderate side on certain issues. For example, he vetoed a ban on gender-affirming care, and he just recently banned an attempt to restrict our voting laws, things like that. So I don't know that I would say he's lost respect there, but it's not the kind of thing where Mike DeWine speaks and the Republicans at the State House jump.
Juravich: In a quick canvassing of some local media, Republican candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy has said that he would let, he told Cleveland.com, he would, let executions go forward in limited cases. Democratic candidate Amy Acton has said she would look at the issue.
She hadn't really come out with a strong stance. Current Senate President Rob McCauley, who also happens to be Vivek Ramasawamy's running mate, told News 5 Cleveland he's somewhere in the middle on the death penalty. So is it, this is an issue where it, are politicians having trouble figuring out if they're for or against or coming out on like on this?
Smyth: I think they are. Interestingly, before he went to prison, former speaker Larry Householder, who did have a lot of sway with fellow Republicans, had been working on the idea of getting rid of the death penalty. And he was sort of one of those political movers and shakers who could strike compromises between parties, between factions. And, you know, he had told us several years ago, well, you know, we think it's time.
And for some fiscal conservatives, it has to do with the expense of it. To wine, there's a morality issue. He has said he always supported it because he thought that the moral imperative of it was to stop other violent crime and he can't find that in the statistics anymore. So I think that that's the case now.
Juravich: In late June, Governor DeWine did an interview on NPR with Scott Simon, in which he was asked about having to sign a death warrant as governor and the toll of carrying them out on everyone involved. And DeWine acknowledged the enormity of all of it. And then he said this.
Gov. Mike DeWine: I also wanted to share with the public what some of these individuals who presided over the executions have told me, and it's something I think we don't think much about, but everybody who I have talked to tells me about the impact, the psychological impact that that has on those that we task with carrying out an execution. It is a huge burden that they carry with them and will carry with the rest of their live.
Juravich: So it sounds there he's getting kind of more toward the moral argument of the issue, because when he had the press conference, DeWine said he wants to abolish the death penalty because it takes too long to execute people, and he had all those charts saying that it wasn't a deterrent anymore. But do you hear the moral argument from him in that quote?
Smyth: I do. And again, the bully pulpit. You heard him direct that comment to the public. He's not talking to fellow politicians. You know, he's trying to make a case that this would come from the grassroots and that there are more Ohioans than not who probably agree with him once they see the data.
And he wants to make sure people understand that he's a moral man, that he's not trying to do this for any other reason. And I the people on the other side feel the same way. As you said in your opening, it's a very complex issue and it just really depends on how you view.
Juravich: Yeah, it depends on what justice looks like to you and then it depends on what happens to you, right, because you can have a view of justice and then something can change.
Smyth: Right and I mean I have a friend from my youth who who had a sister who was murdered and her family was impacted You know when somebody sits on death row For 20 years 30 years and never gets executed. I mean that takes a strain on a family There are some families that believe that Once that person is gone. They can breathe a sigh of relief finally but other people live with that death for the rest of their lives and it haunts them.
One thing I know as a witness to many executions is that I've never seen the two sides square up. You either see a condemned man on the gurney there, very apologetic, apologizing to the family and the family is not having it. The family is just too angry and they're not gonna accept his apology. Or you have a person who's defiant and says, I'm not gonna apologize. And they come up to the mic after the execution and say, all we wanted was an apology. And that really struck me that in the, in terms of the morality of it, that you were never finding a lot of closure for families in some way.
Juravich: Wow, yeah. And you've covered the governor for a long time. How would you assess the evolution of this issue? Because as a state senator, you know, he basically wrote the death penalty law for Ohio. Then he became a congressman, then an attorney general. Now he's in the governor's office. I mean, the change, tell me about that.
Smyth: Well, I think some of this is in his heart. I also think some of this, is the political climate. You know, I mean, he's a very savvy politician. And I think, you know, you see the tea leaves and you think society is changing. You know? Let me reassess this. You know. It's a sign of, of maybe a potentially open mind which is a rare thing these days.
But, you, know, I do think that the winds are changing on this issue and have been for some time. I mean we've had a. Standing proposal to eliminate the death penalty at the state house for at least probably 10 years. So, you, know, you start to see that and then when you see more people being found innocent through DNA evidence and additional empirical things, you know then you have to look at the evidence and study both what's in your heart and what the political winds are telling you.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about Governor DeWine's call to abolish the death penalty in Ohio with Associated Press journalist Julie Carr-Smith. Governor De Wine quietly commuted the death sentence of Gregory Lott in early June. Even though he didn't answer questions when asked about exonerations at that press conference, he said, we're not talking about that right now, I think was the quote or something like that.
But journalist Doug Livingston of the Marshall Project Cleveland was the first reporter to find that, that he did commute a death sentence in May. Can you talk about that case at all? Or it involved mental illness and intellectual disabilities. Did that surprise you to find out that he had quietly commuted this death sentence and no one knew about it? It did.
Smyth: Me because typically it's a pretty steady drumbeat of news releases that he'll put out that will say things like you know I've extended the execution date of this number of death row inmates and that you know here are their new dates and they were always pushing it well past he was going to be in office but he has not commuted anything and so yeah it was a complex case where there was a mental health defense, and he just made that decision.
I mean, I've seen Gregory Lott's execution on my calendar now for years and years, and it keeps getting punted and punted. And so maybe he was trying to set an example, but it was very unusual that he didn't make it public.
Juravich: Well, as someone who's covered this for a long time, could you see DeWine commuting other death sentences before he leaves office?
Smyth: I could, I mean, I could see him, and other governors have done so. I could him making that decision at the last minute. I think this might be his sort of Hail Mary to see if he can get the law changed first before he would do that, because if he just went in and did that, then it would be sort of a bigger battle that he would be having.
So maybe he's trying to see if he he can pull some political threads together to. Get the law changed, but if not, yeah, I mean, he could do anything in this lame duck period and that wouldn't be...
Juravich: Out of the ordinary. But even in the lame duck period, it seems unlikely that lawmakers are going to take this up. Right. Right. And then he also mentioned the idea of putting it before voters. But I don't know of an active petition drive. And so lawmakers could put it on the ballot, but they probably won't if they're not going take it up themselves, right?
Smyth: Right, so the lawmakers do have that ability to push out their own issues to the statewide ballot, and they have done so this year, but they won't because there's not the political will at the state house to do this. The leaders of both chambers are pretty supportive of this policy, the death penalty, and even though, I mean, they're looking at what DeWine is having to say as, well, we might not.
We might be having long waits to execute people, but some of that is because we haven't figured out a way to get around the issue, which in Ohio right now has to do with the cocktail lethal injection drugs that we use is unavailable. What happened was that some pharmaceutical companies decided that it was not within their mission as companies to kill people.
They wanted their drugs to be life-saving and so they got out of the business and there's a way that you were able to get those drugs but then that dried up too, so They try this nitrogen To propose a nitrogen bill and that went nowhere because that is essentially a suffocation type of a procedure and that was in numerous states that's been shot down as unconstitutional violation of sort of cruel and unusual punishment.
Juravich: Yeah, I was going to mention the lethal injection drugs in that it kind of caused an unofficial moratorium. If you can't get the drugs, then you can do the executions. But even though Governor DeWine signs these, like pushes the date back and back, was it kind of like the death penalty has been abolished anyway because of the drugs?
Smyth: Definitely. I mean we haven't had an execution in Ohio since 2018. That was the year he was elected so his first day in office was in January of 2019 and there haven't been any executions. The two previous governors, there were quite a few on their watch.
Juravich: And it is notable, I wanted to say that Governor DeWine said in the press conference about this, that he did not confer with Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswami before deciding to call for an end to the death penalty. So that's notable, just to say, that, you know, it, it reiterates that he's not in lockstep with everything that the Republican party in Ohio is doing.
Smyth: Right. I mean, I think that he, it wasn't so much, will this continue under Ramaswami, if Ramasvami is elected, it was more like, I, Mike DeWine, I'm trying to have an impact as Mike Dewine before I leave. And, and he doesn't want it punted, if possible, just to the next Republican governor to deal with.
Juravich: And just to end on, do you happen to know, I don't know how much you follow other states if they're moving in this direction of abolishing the death penalty or if everyone's just having a moratorium because of the lack of drugs or, you know, like, do know what the national landscape looks like?
Smyth: I do, I don't have all the states in my head, but I do know it's going in both directions. Quite a number of states since 2020 have eliminated it or effectively eliminated it, but then we have other states that are trying to increase it and use this nitrogen option and some things in order to to try to keep it going again it just it sort of shows the complexity of it and where the politics are in various states.
Juravich: We've been talking about Governor DeWine's call to abolish the death penalty in Ohio, and we've been taking with Associated Press journalist Julie Carr Smyth. Thanks for joining us today, Julie.
Smyth: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: And coming up, we're gonna talk to two people who have been working for years to get rid of the death penalty for reasons they say are both practical and personal.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Governor DeWine wants to abolish the death penalty in Ohio. It's a movement that's gaining momentum nationally, but one that's fraught with moral, religious, and political considerations. Not to mention economic ones too. But where you come down on the issue depends on what justice looks like to you.
Joining us now is Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, which is leading the fight to abolished the death penalty. Welcome to All Sides, Kevin.
Kevin Werner: Pleasure to be with you.
Juravich: And also with us, we have Reverend Dr. Crystal Walker, who serves as the co-chair of the Board of Directors for Ohioans to Stop Executions. She's also the pastor of First Christian Church Beach Grove and the executive director of the Vine Ecumenical Ministries. Welcome to all sides, Reverend Walker. Thank you so much. And let's start with you, Crystal. Yours is a very personal story. Tell us how you came to be an advocate for abolishing the death penalty.
Rev. Dr. Crystal Walker: I actually was an advocate for abolishing the death penalty from my teens when I just would get physically sick when someone would be executed. It carried on into my seminary years when I did a. Paper on the abolishment of the death penalty. And my professor at the seminary said, you only are against the death penalty because it hasn't personally affected your life.
And I said, if it personally affected my life, I think I would still be against the Death Penalty. Well, unfortunately that happened. My son was murdered in 2013 at the age of 28 years old, Even though he is um, killer who the police know who it is, has not been charged with murder. If he were, I would still not be for him being executed.
Juravich: I'm sorry about your son and but is it can you understand how some some people you know It depends on what justice looks like to you. I mean, can you understanding how some people? Want the eye for an eye and even though you coming out on the other side
Walker: I can understand that. In fact, I was in that space for probably about three days. There was a retaliatory killing for someone that they thought was involved in my son's murder. And I was at first like good.
And then secondly, I wasn't like, I wouldn't want any other mother or father, brother, sister, grandparent to experience what I experienced. Even though I can understand the need for justice, which may look different than my need for Justice, I still do not think that execution is right.
Juravich: Kevin, let's bring you into the conversation. How did you come to be an advocate for abolishing the death penalty? You've led this group for a number of years. How did, how did you to this?
Werner: Yeah, I met a woman whose family had been broken apart by a murder. Her five-year-old daughter had been abducted in the middle of the night while on a camping vacation and the worst possible thing that could have happened is what happened. And in the ensuing months, when the person who was responsible was apprehended, he took his own life in jail awaiting trial.
And so for the family, the two different families had very different ways of getting to this place where they were kind of linked in a way. And those two moms became friends in an odd and hard to understand way because I guess at the end of the day, the two of them were just moms who had lost their kids in very different way, obviously. But I didn't understand how um, people could be that forgiving or how this really awful thing could have happened. And yet there's still this sort of sense of, I don't hold that over that person. I don t hold that against, um, against that other, other person.
And so I just remember thinking that I never thought about the death penalty from the perspective of the victim's family and sort of what that does to them in the years of. Upheaval and trauma and being stuck in the same place for all of those years and just what that does to a person. That's what brought me in, what has kept me here, I think, is getting to know and meeting the wrongfully convicted men in our state and to understand how their cases sort of went so badly wrong. So victims' family members brought me in and I think exonerees keep me here.
Juravich: On your website, you have a photo of Governor DeWine with a quote from him about abolishing the death penalty. And then you are asking people to sign a petition to thank the governor and then encourage him to commute the death sentences of people on death row. So tell me about a mass commutation. Because doesn't something like that negate all the work that prosecutors and juries and judges who handed down the death sentences tell me this call for a mass communication?
Werner: Yeah, I mean, the governor has the authority and the power to do that, given that Governor DeWine has a deeper understanding of the death penalty than any other governor that we've had. I mean he's had this from early days as a prosecutor and then as a member of Congress and then a lieutenant governor and so forth and attorney general. So he understands the problems that are inherent in the system more so than anyone else.
And I think that it's not lost on him based on what he has said his you know using data To kind of come to the conclusion. That's not a deterrent. It's not working It's takes too long for victim family members and really harms Corrections staff None of those things are cured, I think, without the death penalty being repealed. And so I think that for Governor DeWine, I think he's gonna be careful, I think is gonna be smart about what he's going to do with respect to executive clemency. You know, there's a process, there are sort of rules in place, and obviously Governor De Wine, I'm sure, would follow all of those.
But I think that. What we have now is a system that perpetually doesn't do the things it was supposed to do. And I think we have a governor who recognizes that and ultimately will decide if he's gonna commute sentences or not. But for sure, all of the underlying problems with the death penalty system are not fixed until or unless the law is repealed. We had a task force that looked at this issue, gosh, more than 10 years ago. Those recommendations have been sitting for more than ten years because the legislature has refused to act. Well, the legislature has also refused to act on repeal legislation. I think we've had it every GA since 2011. So Governor DeWine, I think, is aware of all of that and aware of some of the dysfunction, I think you could say, within the system that only prolongs the grief and the suffering of victim families.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about Governor Rewind's push to abolish the death penalty in Ohio with one of the groups that's been leading the fight. And with us is Kevin Warner, Executive Director of Ohioans to Stop Executions. And also with us, is Reverend Dr. Crystal Walker, who is the co-chair of the group's board.
Crystal, you have volunteered as a part of the Kairos Project, the Kairs Prison Ministry. It's a national ministry that takes volunteers into prisons. Can you tell us about that, what you have learned from that experience?
Walker: Absolutely. I've volunteered with Cairo's prison ministry for over 20 years, where we volunteers go into the prison to bring a little bit of Christianity, basically, to the prison walls and for them to spread that around the compound. What I've learned is that people are people. Some people who have made absolutely horrific, terrible mistakes. Some people that are spending their life wanting to change. And some people who honestly will not change at all. It brings to fact that we're dealing with humanity and the humanity in people we have to really see.
So I remember there was one time when I was giving a talk during Kairos and during this talk there was a corrections officer that was upstairs and she was bawling because she had lost her only son to murder. And she was asking me, how could I be that forgiving? When I returned to the table, there was an incarcerated individual that had been sitting next to me the entire time of this weekend. And this was a Sunday talk and it started on Thursday. This incarcerated individual asked me, what was my son's name? I told her, she says, I knew him. She says, he saved my life by talking to me. That is the humanity that is, that we find in prison with prisoners and so forth. So that's what I. That's why.
Juravich: Yeah. It's a deal. Yeah. Kevin, there's a lot of people that want to know, you know, the idea of life in prison without parole and keeping someone alive and paying for them to be in the prison versus the cost that it takes to execute someone and someone who's on death row and sometimes it takes 20 years to actually, you carry out the death sentence. What does the data show about which one's more expensive? Because I think, you know, people who have not been impacted by this personally. Just turned toward the money. And they're like, OK, which one makes more sense?
Werner: Yeah, the death penalty is exorbitantly more expensive and from every conceivable angle. First, you have two different trials that occur just to one sort out innocence or guilt or innocence, right? And then the second trial is to determine what's the sentence gonna be. Everything about a death penalty trial requires more motions, more pleadings, more process, more everything. So the figures that we have and these come from the attorney general's office, about $3 million per case for a death case as compared to if you try and convict an 18-year-old and sentence them to life without parole, those lifetime costs are about $1 million. So right off the bat, death penalty cases are far more expensive.
The other component is, Death is different, and so there are mandatory appeals that are part of the process. Now, Ohio has already shortened its mandatory appeals, did that back in 2005. So we basically cut away any unnecessary or excessive appeals. And so part of process is the review that occurs. Some cases are now more than 40 years old. That is the nature of the thing that legislators have chosen to allow to exist.
Other anecdotal examples, there's a Franklin County judge who came in and provided testimony and said within a relatively short period of time, he presided over a death penalty case and a non-death penalty case. Now, the non-death penalty case was still an ag murder, so they were very similar, and the death penalty was 27 times more expensive. Um, we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to then later get the same result because most of these cases eventually become a life without parole. They get overturned by the courts. They get their commutation sometimes. There's all kinds of reasons that these cases that are decided by a jury or a judge way back when get converted to life sentences later on. But we're still paying for that premium of the $3 million a case. So it makes absolutely zero sense. If you look at. The economics of it.
Juravich: There are statistics on your website and one of them says nine out of ten death penalty cases in Ohio do not result in an execution. But are those numbers essentially because we've had an unofficial moratorium for the past seven years? You know, there hasn't been an execution since 2018. So therefore, is that where your numbers come from?
Werner: No, those numbers come from looking at the entirety of the law since it was enacted. Prosecutors do start the process through the capital indictment system, and so when you look at the 3,500 or so cases that they've indicted, they've said, this is the one that fits the criteria, this the one that we think this person should be put on death row. Will they get about 10% of those cases actually land with a sentence? So there's your 9 out of 10. But then it gets worse because most of those 339, 340 actual death sentences that have been handed down, about half of those later get overturned or people die naturally in prison or there's all kinds of things that happen, not in execution, but all kinds things happen. So the nine out of 10 number is actually low. It's more like 9.8 out of ten.
And so again, like we're wasting all of this money on trying to chase these cases that will never result in an actual execution or statistically speaking, very, very unlikely. And on the other hand is we're not filling or fulfilling the needs of victim families. Regardless of what someone who's going through this experience thinks or whatever their feelings are, the common thread is they say over and over, this doesn't meet my needs. This doesn't. Do what I need it to do. Governor DeWine talked a little bit about that with the justice system in death cases not being swift or certain. We hear that time and again from victim family members that that's not what they get out of this system.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. And Reverend Walker, I wanted to ask you also about racial disparities. What have you found out about racial disparities when it comes to who is on death row?
Walker: The racial disparities are huge, tending more towards African-Americans. And amazingly enough, that of course is not the general population and of the citizenship of the United States. So it happens when there's like places in Hamilton County or Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, those places where they are more African-American or not, or it really depends on who the African-Americans killed. And I'm just saying this.
Juravich: And the type of lawyer that they can get as well, that kind of thing. Yeah.
Walker: Yeah, yeah, and my son would have never, his killer would have got on death row because his killer is African American.
Juravich: His killer would have not gone on death row.
Walker: But have not done on that front. Okay.
Juravich: Um, Kevin, the, um, we're running short on time, but this, a part of this is a conservative led movement to talk to me about, um, the conservative view on the issue and why more are favoring ending the death penalty and what it looks like nationally and locally. Cause there's a, there's. Disparity there between it being like a Republican Democrat issue or a conservative, you know, that kind of thing.
Werner: Well just this week I think we saw a poll, Axios reported, I think it was Gongwer, did a poll that the majority of legislators favor ending the death penalty. Like that doesn't surprise me. For about the last 10 years it has been conservative-led. In terms of every GA we have more and more conservatives who say, I'm with you on this issue, I thinks it's time to end the death. What I think is really driving that are three things. One, it's the wrongful convictions because these are not a problem of long ago. I think the folks on the other side of this issue like to say, oh, these are cases from the 80s and the 90s and these issues don't exist anymore. It's like, well, no, that's simply not true and the data bear that out.
The second thing is the cost, especially those who are fiscal conservative. They don't want to waste Ohioans' tax dollars. And then the third thing is exactly the experience of crystal. It is the impact on victim families and the long-term harm that this system does to folks who need that harm the least. And so those are really the reasons why conservatives are stepping forward. It's former governors, it's former attorneys general, it is the people who are closest to the system, which I find striking because I think they have more information and knowledge and understanding as to how this system really works. Those are the ones who are really stepping forward and saying it's time.
Juravich: Unfortunately, we're short on time. So just real quick, Governor DeWine also suggested that if lawmakers don't take up the issue, it could be taken directly to voters. But that would be like a signature gathering campaign to put it on the ballot. Is there a movement afoot to do this? No. No, okay. Thank you for your time. We've been talking with the executive director of Ohioans to stop executions Kevin Warner Thank you, for joining us today. Thank you. And we've also been talking, with reverend dr. Crystal walker co-chair of ohioans to, stop executes thanks for joining, us today crystal thank you and Coming up, we are talking to the ohio prosecuting attorneys association about Why, they are not in favor of ending capital punishment that is when all sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. We're talking this hour about the death penalty and Governor Mike DeWine's push for lawmakers to abolish it. Short of that, the governor mentioned putting the issue before Ohio voters. And we wondered what attorneys who prosecute crimes would think about that and how the death penity, while legal in Ohio, has resulted in no executions since 2018. Joining us now is Louis Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association. Welcome to All Sides, Lou.
Louis Tobin: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
Juravich: So from where you're sitting, how did Governor DeWine's announcement to abolish the death penalty land with you? Were you, I mean, he's hinted at it here and there. What did you think of the press conference and the event where he announced it?
Tobin: Yeah. Well, first of all, you know, the governor has been a good friend to prosecutors, to law enforcement and to victims throughout his career. And he deserves a lot of credit for all the things that he's done to promote public safety in this state. But we obviously have a fundamental disagree with disagreement with him about this issue.
I don't think it came as a surprise to anyone after seven and a half years of delay after delay after delay in these cases that this was his position. I think anybody that follows this issue at all pretty much knew that already. Um, it continues to be the position of our association that these calls to abolish the death penalty are dangerous. They're short-sighted, um, and they're not in touch with public opinion about this issue or about crime in general.
Juravich: Well, there hasn't been an execution in Ohio for nearly eight years. What are the consequences of a delay like that from your perspective? Because you have all these people who have been sentenced to death and nothing has happened. So are you continuing to use the death penalty even though they kind of know nothing's gonna happen?
Tobin: Yeah, obviously it's not good. We have pushed for seven and a half years to resume executions in the state, up to and including supporting legislative initiatives to try and get executions to resume. It's a disservice to the victims of these crimes. It's the disservice to the communities where they occurred, and it's a disservice to the people who served on the juries and the loved ones of the victims, that we have all this undue delay.
This issue of delay is something that opponents of the death penalty consistently talk about and consistently raise in opposition when they're the ones that are responsible for large portions of the delay. We have 30 people in the state of Ohio who have exhausted their appeals and who are just waiting for an execution date, and we've just added seven and a half years to all of their sentences.
Juravich: What do you think of those who say that the reason there haven't been executions is because of access to the pharmaceutical drugs, the lethal injection methods? Do you think that the way executions are carried out should be changed or do you that they could get the drugs if they tried harder? Like, where do you come down on that?
Tobin: I don't buy that argument. I think we could get the drugs if we tried harder. More than a dozen states and the federal government have executed over 100 people, almost all of them by lethal injection since Ohio's most recent execution, which was in 2018. So I just don't by that argument and I think to the extent that there are pharmaceutical companies or other corporations that are trying to interfere with Ohio's criminal justice policy, we should be divesting state funds from those corporations.
Juravich: You also take issue with some of the polling on the death penalty issue. So tell us why, because there are some polls that reflect the nation's mood and say that a majority of Americans are against the death penalty. Do you take issue with some of that polling?
Tobin: Yeah, well, first of all, I don't think any national poll has ever said that a majority of Americans are against the death penalty. I think there's always been majority support, and I think that continues to be reflected in polls that are conducted by respected polling organizations like Pew and Gallup.
But look, I think a couple of things. When prosecutors go out into their communities in Ohio and talk to their communities about this issue, there's overwhelming support in communities across Ohio for the death penalty and having the death penalty available for some of the most serious cases. And second of all, I think some of the polling just gets this issue wrong.
When you do polling that's focused specifically on the types of murders that make people death penalty eligible, support is above 60%, even getting into the 70% range for specific types of aggravated murder. When you ask people if they would support the death penalty for the rape and murder of a child or the kidnapping and murder a child, or the murder of multiple people, or an act of terrorism, support for the death penalty is very high. And so this effort to abolish the death penalty is just completely out of touch with where the public is on this issue.
Juravich: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the the use prosecutors have when they use the death penalty kind of for leverage. So if they want more information or if they want someone to, you know, give information about someone else they're trying to make a case on, they sometimes will use the Death Penalty for talk about the idea of having it in the toolbox as a piece of leverage.
Tobin: Well, first of all, I think it's a myth that prosecute this, that's promoted by opponents of the death penalty that prosecutors are using the death penalty as a bargaining chip. They don't set out to use it that way. I think if prosecutors did set out to use that way, you would see a lot more death penalty indictments across the state than you see. They use this sparingly for the most serious cases where they think that their community would support a death sentence. Does it end up you... Do they end up negotiating some of these cases like they do any other case? Of course they do. But they don't set out to use the death penalty as a bargaining chip.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. And we're talking about Governor DeWine's recent announcement that he wants to abolish the death penalty in Ohio. And we are talking about the reasons for keeping the death penalty with Louis Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association.
I mean, I'm not trying to use one specific case as an example, but this is the one that pops to mind is the Pike County case, you know, the murders of an entire family and there were four people on trial and they, several of them ended up. With life in prison without parole in exchange for no one in the family getting the death penalty. So that sounds like a bargaining chip to me. Because the ones that got life in prison without parol are going to testify against another family member or something like that.
Tobin: Well, first of all, the death penalty is not completely off the table in the Wagner cases. There is an agreement. Several of the cases are still ongoing. There is agreement to drop the death sentence against several of the Wagners if Jake Wagner testifies against them. And that is an ongoing case right now. I'm not disputing that.
Prosecutors will negotiate these cases the way that they negotiate any other criminal case. You know, without the death sentence, I'm not sure that Jake Wagner ever, without the possibility of the death sentences, I'm sure that Jay Wagner ever would have agreed to testify against his family members. And I'm no sure that there'll ever be the possibility of justice in those cases. But I'm saying that prosecutors don't set out to use the death penalty that way. If they did, there would be a lot more death penalty indictments in Ohio.
Juravich: What is something that you think the public misunderstands about the death penalty? Because I, the, the most, the thing I think that is gets talked about the most besides, you know, the whole eye for an eye argument is people talk about the money. I wanted to, can you talk to me about what does the public misunderstanding, um, you know, how much it costs for someone to carry out a death sentence versus life in prison without parole? Um, in the previous segment, Kevin Warner, you know, gave us some numbers. He said it costs out $3 million. For a death penalty case and only 1.3 million for life in prison without parole. Talk to me about the money.
Tobin: Yeah, a couple of things. The justice of a case should not be determined primarily by the cost. If a punishment is constitutionally permissible and morally justified, then it should be available. And the death penalty is both constitutionally permissible and it is absolutely morally justified.
The second thing that I would say about that is in other states that have abolished the death penalty, there have been movements to abolished life without parole. And so Virginia repealed the death penalty a few years ago. And before the governor in Virginia could even sign the bill, there were op-eds by anti-death penalty organizations calling for the abolishment of life without parol as another form of imprisoned death.
There are movements in California and Massachusetts to end life without perol. And those are the beginnings of things that would happen in Ohio that would inevitably make life without payroll just as expensive as the death is now. And there will be a movement to get rid of life without parole. And eventually we'll be talking about letting some of these seriously dangerous people back out into the public where they will inevitably commit more horrific crimes.
Juravich: Given that Governor DeWine's term is almost over, maybe this is all a moot point at this point, his call to abolish the death penalty, or it could be one that'll spill over into the governor's race. Republican vague Ramaswami on one side, Democrat Amy Acton on the other side. Has your organization talked to those campaigns about this issue and whether it'll carry on.
Tobin: We've not had conversations with them yet about this. I do know that they should be asked about this, the governor called on either the legislature to address this issue, which we believe they already have, or to put this to a vote of the public. If the candidates are asked about and the candidates are out there talking about this the public is gonna get a chance to have their say.
And the public deserves to know what their position is on the death penalty, whether they support it or not. And what their plan is to resume executions in Ohio. And I think it's just not an acceptable answer to say, well, this is the legislature's problem. What are you gonna do to enforce the law?
Juravich: You mentioned before that you'd think it's not true that the, you know, or the state's not trying hard enough rather to get the lethal injection drugs, but other states are trying to find different methods of execution. Does your organization have a stance on whether lethal injection drugs are the way of the future?
Tobin: I think we just wanna see executions resumed. If the issue really is the inability to get the drugs, then I think we should be exploring alternative methods of execution. I don't believe that to be the case.
So I think if we can find the lethal injection drugs, if we provide the pharmaceutical companies with confidentiality, which they had up until several years ago, that may help break some of the logjam over this. But we would support any way to resume executions and to help ensure that the law is gonna be enforced.
Juravich: I mean, you know, it runs the gamut, there's the nitrogen thing that people have been talking about in some states are enacting or talking about enacting, then there's a firing squad or the electric chair. Does it matter to you? Should we be considering some other things if the drugs seem to be a hindrance?
Tobin: We would support any constitutional method of execution.
Juravich: Okay. Constitutional method. Can you talk to me about the cases where the death penalty is actually sought? Because, you know, you said, you that it's not meant to be used as a bargaining chip. What kind of cases is there a certain type of case when the prosecutor says, yes, the death is on the table?
Tobin: Yeah There is, I believe. And if you look at recent death sentences in Ohio, and really I'm looking at probably the last 10 years or maybe a little bit longer than that, almost all of them involve multiple murders. And so when you have a couple of others involve the murder of a child, some of them are multiple murders that involve also the murder a child. I know there's another one where someone was already serving a life without parole sentence in prison and he murdered his cellmate.
So. When you're talking about the issue of multiple murders in particular, or somebody who's in prison and commits a murder, where's the justice for the multiple victims? You've got somebody who is already facing life, the rest of their life in prison for committing the first murder, and they go on to murder a second, third, fourth, or fifth person, and sometimes even more than that. Justice demands more in those cases. And in order to have true accountability for those multiple victims, the death sentence has to be available. And almost all of the recent death sentences in Ohio are cases just like that.
Juravich: And just to end on, I mean, what would you want the public to know when they hear their governor, the Republican governor who wrote the death penalty legislation 40 years ago now saying that he is coming out against it? What would you Ohioans to know? And I'm sorry, we only have about 30 seconds left.
Tobin: You know, I would just say that a lot of this conversation, every time this comes up, focuses on the people who have committed these murders and what's fair and what is just for them and the cost of this and the idea that we might execute somebody innocent. And I think listeners should just think about the victims of these cases too.
People who had everything taken from them, loved ones who had taken from everything from them. And the community that they came from is the one that decided to impose the sentence. They did that through their prosecutor, through their judge, and through the jury that recommended the sentence, and that's their community speaking. They're community outrage in these cases. And I would just encourage people to think about the victims.
Juravich: We've been talking about the death penalty in Ohio with Louis Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association. Thank you for your time today.
Tobin: Thank you for having me.
Juravich: This has been All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich.