Ohio should be the next to formally abolish the death penalty. How can we ask a heavily armed population to stop solving its problems through murder when that's exactly what Ohio insists on the right to do?

According to two levels of our justice system, as it's called, Barry Lee Jones was sentenced to death in Arizona with inadequate and incompetent legal representation. Many observers of the case suspect he was innocent. But the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled (6 to 3) that the conviction must stand, and that only in very limited cases can bad legal representation matter.

Any state, such as Ohio, that keeps the death penalty on the books is keeping it in place even for those never given a fair trial.

Since 1973, at least 187 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The only major users of the death penalty left are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt. RootsAction activists were part of a campaign that succeeded in ending the death penalty in Virginia. Now 23 U.S. states, plus Washington, D.C., have abolished the death penalty, and three more have imposed moratoriums. Most of the other 24 states have effectively stopped using capital punishment, but just not abolished it.

Click here to email your state legislators and governor urging abolition!

The evidence shows no deterrent effect from the death penalty.1

The death penalty not only teaches that killing is acceptable, but also teaches that senseless retribution is the framework for lesser punishments. This drives the entire justice system away from restitution, restorative justice, and rehabilitation.

The death penalty, even if never imposed, is used by prosecutors to bully people — some of them innocent of any crime — into plea agreements.2

Since 1973, at least 187 people have been exonerated and removed from death row in the United States. An unknown number of innocent people have been executed.3

Use of the death penalty is persistently and significantly racially biased.4

The financial cost of exhausting appeals and executing someone far outstrips the cost of prison, which far outstrips the cost of a top-quality education.

Much of the world and the world’s governments condemn the death penalty as a gross violation of human rights. For this reason, the U.S. government is sometimes unable to extradite people charged with crimes. For the same reason, the U.S. government struggles in efforts to recommend better human rights practices to others.

Click here to take action now in Ohio.