A line can be drawn from lynchings and other gross acts of historic racial discrimination and the fact that minorities disproportionately are executed now, according to a new report by the Death Penalty Information Center.
Disparities in Ohio’s executions make an appearance of their own in the report.
“Racial bias in the death penalty as it is administered today is connected to America’s history of racial injustice and to the need for broader criminal legal system reform,” said the report, “Enduring Injustice: the Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty.”
Death sentences and executions have been at their lowest point nationally since the 1990s. In Ohio, nobody has died in the death chamber since January 2019, when incoming Gov. Mike DeWine delayed the execution of Warren Keith Henness days after news coverage of a U.S. magistrate’s finding that Ohio’s execution protocol was similar to waterboarding. DeWine has delayed all subsequent executions after drug makers have threatened to stop selling Ohio their products for any purpose if Ohio insists on using them to execute people.
But, as with the rest of the country, Black people and other minorities still have been overrepresented in Ohio’s death chamber.
Even though they make up just 13.4% of the population, 34% of those executed since the modern era of the death penalty began in 1977 have been Black, according to figures maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center, which serves as a clearinghouse for statistics on executions, death sentences, exonerations and other matters.
Ohio has slightly more Black people — 14.3% — but here, too, 34% of the 56 people who have been executed since 1977 have been Black.
Some argue that while Black people have disproportionately been executed, they also are disproportionately the victims of violent crimes such as murder that were committed by another Black person.
For example, FBI uniform crime statistics show that 2,925 — or 45% — of the homicide victims in the United States in 2018 were Black. They also show that 89% of the defendants in those crimes also are Black.
However, the new report from the Death Penalty Information Center presents statistics that indicate that something more is at play than Black-on-Black crime.
For example, it says that 75% of those executed in the modern era received the ultimate punishment for killing white people — even though only half of murder victims were white.
As reasons for the disparities, the report cites racial bias in policing, that 95% of elected prosecutors are white, disparities in legal representation and other matters.
Racial disparities also exist at the corners of Ohio, the report says.
“In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, four of the last six defendants sentenced to death have been Black,” it says, for example.
Between 1992 and 2017 in Hamilton County, “the odds that a Black defendant accused of killing a white victim would be sentenced to death were 5.33 times higher than for all other cases,” it says.
It adds that “Hamilton County is also one of the top 2% of counties responsible for the majority of U.S. executions, and it is the county that has produced the most Ohio executions in the modern era.”
The report concludes that racial bias in executions can not only be connected to injustices of the past, it said it’s connected to the issues so many have been on the streets in protest of this year.
“If we accept racial bias as inevitable when life or death is at stake, what chance is there that we will reject racial discrimination in policing, prosecution, and incarceration?” it asked.
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Also from Ohio Capital Journal:
Alleged Neo-Nazi who carried anti-Semitic sign at COVID-19 protest pleads guilty to gun charge
An alleged neo-Nazi with an extensive criminal history who raised an anti-Semitic sign at a protest of the coronavirus quarantine pleaded guilty to a federal weapons charge last week.
Police arrested Matthew Paul Slatzer, 36, at Fast Times Pub in Canton on Feb. 2. Slatzer, who was intoxicated, was accused of unlawfully possessing a .38 caliber revolver, given his 2010 conviction for domestic violence.
Slatzer also was carrying a knife, OC spray and ammunition at the of his arrest, court documents state.
Prosecutors say he threatened to execute the arresting officers and made homophobic and racist comments.
Slatzer appeared at a protest of COVID-19 lockdowns April 18 outside the Statehouse with a sign depicting a rat with the Star of David on its side and the words “The Real Plague.” Cleveland.com first reported on the display, and The Daily Beast identified the man as Slatzer. READ MORE
The search continues for a new state health director, DeWine says
Gov. Mike DeWine acknowledges that whoever takes over as state health director may face a torrent of criticism just as Dr. Amy Acton did earlier this year.
That’s not a challenge unique to Ohio, the governor also said, vowing the state would continue searching for a permanent replacement to lead the department of health.
DeWine faced his own scrutiny about the hiring process from reporters at Tuesday’s press conference, the first held since the governor saw his appointed replacement step aside within hours of the hire being made public.
The governor announced on Sept. 10 that Dr. Joan Duwve, an Ohio native, would soon take over as the new state health director. Duwve had been serving as director of public health in South Carolina.
That evening, DeWine later said, he learned that Duwve planned to withdraw from consideration, citing “personal reasons.” READ MORE
Report: FirstEnergy being investigated by federal securities and exchange commission
The company at the center of what prosecutors are calling the biggest corruption scandal in Ohio political history is being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Cleveland.com reported Tuesday afternoon:
The examination became public in a lawsuit the company and a consulting firm filed in U.S. District Court in Cleveland against a former employee of the firm who accessed financial information about the Akron-based utility.
The investigation appears to have begun soon after a federal grand jury indicted former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four allies on racketeering charges involving the passage of a $1.3 billion bailout bill for two nuclear power plants, according to court filings.
Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, four political operatives and a dark-money group were charged by federal prosecutors in a criminal complaint that FirstEnergy paid them $61 million to get a $1.3 billion nuclear bailout from ratepayers in the form of House Bill 6.
Charged along with Householder were Matt Borges, a lobbyist who was formerly chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, Neil Clark, a lobbyist who owns Grant Street Consulting, Juan Cespedes, also a lobbyist, and Householder’s close adviser, Jeffrey Longstreth. The investigation centered on their efforts to get HB 6 passed into law.
All are charged with racketeering, which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years. They have pleaded not guilty.
The criminal complaint says that “Company A,” the former FirstEnergy Solutions of Akron now known as Energy Harbor, worked to save its failing nuclear plants by funneling $61 million into Generation Now, a 501(c)(4) “dark money” group controlled by Householder.
The money was used for three general purposes, the complaint said. First it was used to build “Team Householder” through campaign contributions and other measures that helped Householder win the speakership in 2019. The money was also allegedly used for the personal benefit of Householder and the other conspirators. Finally, the money was allegedly used to fend off a petition effort to repeal HB 6, going so far as to buy plane tickets for and pay $2,500 each to people circulating it to get out of town.
