On the 44th anniversary of Ohio’s death penalty law taking effect, twenty-seven members of the 114th General Assembly have now joined the chorus of leaders calling for abolition.

On Friday, the former lawmakers sent a letter to current lawmakers expressing support for efforts to repeal Ohio’s death penalty. The letter is directed to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where SB 133 was referred.

Hearings on the legislation have not yet begun. 

The letter states, in part, “we understand this broken death penalty system’s grievous flaws, its unintended consequences, and its failure to achieve the benefits we had intended.”

The full letter can be found at this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-I2lV_0WycmTdX_ik6Ldg6O8geWRS_t6/edit

"When those responsible for our current capital punishment system say it must go, our state lawmakers must listen,” said Sean McCann, Policy Strategist for the ACLU of Ohio. “Ohio’s death penalty is administered arbitrarily and unfairly, fails to deter crime and puts innocent lives at risk. The ACLU of Ohio has advocated for abolition since 1981, and we could not agree more with these 'architects' that the system is broken beyond repair."

Marge Koosed, Professor Emerita at the University of Akron Law School, interviewed 44 of the 57 surviving former legislators. “Only 5 of them expressed continued support for the current death penalty system,” Koosed said. “The rest now believe ending the death penalty is appropriate, and everyone I interviewed agrees it is not working as they expected.”

Ohio’s death penalty was reinstated in 1981 on a 67 to 31 vote in the House, 23 to 10 in the Senate. Over half the members of the 114th General Assembly have passed away. Professor Koosed set out to learn whether the architect’s views were shared by others who had voted on the issue in 1981. 

“I had reviewed the Columbus Dispatch op-ed written by several architects: former Governor Bob Taft, and former Attorneys General Jim Petro and Lee Fisher”, Koosed said. “They found the system they helped to create was so fundamentally flawed it must be rejected, and Paul Pfeifer, the principal architect of the 1981 legislation and later an Ohio Supreme Court Justice applying it, has repeatedly urged repeal.“ 

Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, in a law review article, wrote: “Are we done with death in Ohio? We should be. The statute which we believed in 1981 was carefully crafted, limited in reach, and targeting just the 'worst of the worst,' has fallen far short in so many ways. … Ohio's death penalty statute has, in practice, resulted in a 'death lottery' that should be abandoned.” 

In 2011, Pfeifer said, “So I ask, do we want our state government–and thus by extension, all of us – to be in the business of taking lives in what amounts to a death lottery? I can’t imagine that’s something about which most of us feel comfortable. And, thus, I believe the time has come to abolish the death penalty in Ohio.”

Kevin Werner, Executive Director of Ohioans to Stop Executions said, “We know so much more today than lawmakers knew 44 years ago. And now that we know better, we need to do better and repeal the death penalty."

Former Governor Bob Taft is not a signer on the Architects letter released today because he did not vote on the final bill as he had left the legislature for another position. Former Justice Paul Pfeifer is not a signer due to his current position as Executive Director of the Ohio Judicial Conference.