Victims deserve justice. Why the effort to repeal the Ohio death penalty is dangerous

Louis Tobin is executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association.

A recent Dispatch guest column by retired Ohio judge James Brogan lamented the fact that the General Assembly has not acted on many of the recommendations of the 2014 Joint Task Force on the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty.

The columnist called for repeal of the death penalty because of the inaction.

The task force recommendations were driven by a pro-defense anti-death penalty majority who recommended a series of proposals ostensibly intended to make the death penalty fairer.

Ostensibly because opponents of the death penalty are not really interested in a fairer capital justice system.

As Professor Doug Berman of Ohio State’s law school astutely recognized in an article published in the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy “serious efforts to further 'perfect' existing death penalty systems will provide defense lawyers and abolitionists with still more opportunities to impede the prospects and progress of even the most horrific murderer advancing toward a state’s death chamber.”  

More: I've judged, prosecuted death penalty cases. Only way to restore fairness is to repeal it

More: I’ve seen evil inflicted on the innocent with no remorse. Vilest killers must be killed.

Rather than creating more fairness, the task force's recommendations would create more unnecessary legal hurdles intended to tie the death penalty up in more litigation and cause more undue delay for victims and their families.

Most telling is that task force rejected pro-victim recommendations offered by the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association that would have allowed judges to consider victim impact and to conduct a full and fair assessment of aggravating circumstances in death penalty cases. But the task force was not remotely interested in fairness for the victims.

Opponents of the death penalty are interested in one thing: abolishing the death penalty.

Barring that, they want to create more and more legal obstacles to capital punishment so that they can then point to those obstacles to justify their argument that the system is broken and ineffective.

Opponents are not interested in a path to justice for the victims of our most horrific crimes. For them, fairness is a one-way street. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The effort to repeal the death penalty is misguided, dangerous, and does not reflect what most people want from their justice system.

Gallup polling on the death penalty consistently shows that support is between 55%-60%.

When people are asked about the specific types of murders that can result in a death sentence – the rape or kidnapping and murder of a young child, acts of terrorism, or committing multiple acts of murder – support for the death penalty is even greater, reaching 70% - 80%.

These are the types of murders for which the death penalty is used in Ohio.

The Obama administration understood the need for the death penalty in its pursuit of a death sentence for the terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon.

The Biden administration understood the need for the death penalty in its pursuit of a death sentence for the hate crime murders at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

This is precisely why we have a death penalty.

There is nothing progressive, there is nothing conservative, there is nothing compassionate, and there is nothing just about allowing people to commit these acts without facing some ultimate accountability to their victims and to their community.

It is simply dangerous.

Ohio prosecutors want the death penalty to be fair, accurate, and to guarantee defendants the due process they deserve.

Unlike opponents we want fairness for the victims also.

This requires creating a path to justice that avoids undue delay in the carrying out of death sentences. It requires the political will to resume executions and enforce the law in pursuit of justice for the victims of these most horrific crimes.

This is what justice demands.

Louis Tobin is executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Why justice, Ohio prosecutor demand state keep the death penalty