Gov. Mike DeWine helped write the law that brought back the death penalty in Ohio. After fifty years of experience with it, he now says the state should abolish it, because it no longer deters murder. I agree with him, and Ohioans should too.
Look at Tennessee. On September 30, the state tried to execute Christa Pike. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, she kept breathing after two doses of lethal drugs and was taken to a hospital. Her lawyers say she is in critical condition. Whatever she did, a person suffered through a failed killing that served no purpose. That is what the Eighth Amendment calls “cruel and unusual punishment.” Ohio has its own history of botched lethal injections and 12 death row exonerations. A prison sentence can be corrected if we are wrong. An execution cannot.
The practical case has collapsed too. Research summarized by Britannica shows no greater deterrent effect than long imprisonment. Meanwhile, 113 countries have abolished it entirely, and only 15 carried out executions in 2024.
Is there a better option? Yes. Most nations use long sentences with a real chance of review, keeping dangerous people away from society for as long as they are dangerous. I believe violence begets violence, and a state that kills in our name teaches that killing answers harm.
None of this lessens the grief of victims’ families. But ending executions does not mean forgetting the victims. It means Ohio chooses not to answer killing with killing. I urge our legislators to take the governor’s advice, and if they will not, to let voters decide.
Steven Hudson
Bowling Green
