Capital punishment in Ohio

thumb|right|upright=1.2|The [[Southern Ohio Correctional Facility is where condemned individuals in Ohio are executed.]]

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Ohio, although executions have been suspended indefinitely by Governor Mike DeWine until a replacement for lethal injection is chosen by the Ohio General Assembly.

The 31st inmate executed in Ohio since 1999, Marvallous Keene, was the 1000th person to be executed by lethal injection since its first use for executions by the U.S. in 1982.

On November 21, 2001, Ohio revised and amended the code of criminal prosecution by abolishing the use of electrocution as an authorized method of execution. This would leave lethal injection as the only remaining method of execution in the state. Similar statutory provisions to the death penalty were also taken by 10 other states at the time. As of December 31, 2001, Ohio, along with 36 states, utilized lethal injection as the predominant form of execution across the country.

On July 1, 2011, Lundbeck, the Danish pharmaceutical company that holds the sole licence to manufacture pentobarbital in the United States, announced that its distributors would deny distribution of pentobarbital to U.S. prisons that carry out the death penalty by lethal injection. The state's last dose of pentobarbital was used on September 25, 2013, to carry out the execution of Harry Mitts Jr., who was condemned for the murders of his white neighbor's African-American boyfriend and a white police officer.

In January 2024, after Alabama authorized the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen hypoxia, Ohio lawmakers were considering to legalize nitrogen gas as a new method of execution aside from lethal injection, and the new method was supported by the attorney general of Ohio.

, Ohio has 108 inmates on death row. Notable inmates on Ohio's death row include serial killers Stanley Theodore Adams, Richard Beasley, Shawn Grate, Anthony Kirkland, and Michael Madison. There are no women on Ohio's death row following the commutation of Donna Roberts' sentence to life without parole on May 9, 2025. However, two male death row inmates, Timothy Hoffner (Taci Vixen) and Joel Drain (Victoria Drain), have transitioned while incarcerated.

Methods

Hanging

124 people were executed by the state of Ohio via hanging before the state switched to the electric chair in 1897.

"That the mode of inflicting the punishment of death in all cases under this act, shall be by hanging by the neck, until the person so to be punished shall be dead; & the sheriff, or the coroner in the case of the death, inability or absence of the sheriff of the proper county, in which the sentence of death shall be pronounced by force of this act, shall be the executioner".

Capital crimes

A charge of aggravated murder with death penalty specifications may occur with at least one of the following special circumstances:

The murder was the assassination of the president of the United States or person in the line of succession to the presidency, or of the governor or lieutenant governor of Ohio, or of the president-elect or vice president-elect of the United States, or of the governor-elect or lieutenant governor-elect of Ohio, or of a candidate for any of the foregoing offices.
The murder was committed for hire.
The murder was committed for the purpose of escaping detection, apprehension, trial, or punishment for another offense committed by the offender.
The murder was committed while the offender was under detention or while the offender was at large after having broken detention.
Prior to the murder, the offender was convicted of a previous offense having as an essential element the purposeful killing of or attempt to kill another, or the current offense was part of a course of conduct involving the offender's purposeful killing of or attempt to kill two or more persons.
The victim was a law enforcement officer, and the offender knew or reasonably should have known that fact, and the officer was either performing duties or the offender acted with the specific purpose of killing such officer.
The murder was committed while the offender was committing, attempting to commit, or fleeing immediately after committing or attempting to commit kidnapping, rape, aggravated arson, aggravated robbery, or aggravated burglary, and either the offender was the principal offender in the commission of the aggravated murder or, if not the principal offender, committed the aggravated murder with prior planning.
The victim was a witness who was purposely killed by the offender either to prevent the victim from testifying, or in retaliation for prior testimony.
The offender, in the commission of the murder, purposefully caused the death of another who was under 13 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense, and either the offender was the principal offender in the commission of the offense or, if not the principal offender, committed the offense with prior planning.
The offense was committed while the offender was committing, attempting to commit, or fleeing immediately after committing or attempting to commit terrorism.

Opposition and controversy

There is a movement in the state to end abolish capital punishment. According to the Associated Press, Republicans such as former Ohio Governor Bob Taft, great-grandson of President William Howard Taft, and former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro have publicly opposed capital punishment. Taft questioned its effectiveness as well as geographic and racial disparities. The former Speaker of the House in Ohio, also Republican, Larry Householder, wants the legislature to revise the law due to the cost of executions and difficulty in obtaining drugs.

The BBC reported that The European Commission - the executive arm of the European Union - wished to ensure that no drugs were being exported from the Union for use in "capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". The EU is part of a worldwide movement against the death penalty. Amnesty International's annual report found that in 2024, prisoners were executed in only 15 of the 193 UN member states.The conviction was almost solely based on the testimony of 12 year old Eddie Vernon, who claimed to see out his school bus window 18 year old Jackson shoot Franks and escape with brothers Ronnie and Wiley Bridgeman. Vernon eventually completely rescinded his statement and admitted he had thought he was doing the thing, but when he changed his mind he had been pressured by police and told his parents would get arrested if he didn't testify. Jackson holds the record for having spent the longest time before exoneration in the United States.

Elwood Jones was exonerated in December 2025. Jones became the 12th person to be exonerated from the death penalty in Ohio. Jones was convicted of murder and robbery of an elderly woman in 1996 and spent 29 years on death row until he was released due to withheld evidence and lack of evidence of guilt.

References

Bibliography

Laws Passed in the Territory of the United States North-West of the River Ohio. Philadelphia, PA: Printed by F. Childs and J. Swaine, 1788.; microfiche Buffalo, NY: Hein, 1986.
Davis, Harry: Death by Law. Columbus, OH: Federal Printing, 1922. (Reprinted from Outlook Magazine).
DeBeck, William: Murder Will Out: The Murders and Executions of Cincinnati. Cincinnati, OH: 1867.
DiSalle, Michael: The Power of Life or Death. New York, NY: Random House, 1965.
Wanger, Eugene G.: "Capital Punishment in Ohio: A Brief History", Ohio Lawyer, November–December 2002, 8, 11, 30.
Fogle, H. M.: The Palace of Death, or, The Ohio Penitentiary Annex. Columbus, OH: 1908.
Fornshell, Marvin E.: The Historical and Illustrated Ohio Penitentiary Annex. Columbus, OH: Arthur, W. McGraw, 1997 (reprint of the 1903 original)
Hixon, Mary, and Frances Hixon: The Last Hangings: Jackson, Ohio 1883-1884. Mary Hixon and Frances Hixon, 1989
Maynard, Rosina: Ohio's Other Lottery System: The Death Penalty. Columbus, OH: Rosina Maynard, 1980.
Morgan, Dan: Historical Lights and Shadows of the Ohio State Penitentiary. Columbus, OH: Ohio Penitentiary Printing, 1893.
Welsh-Huggins, Andrew: No Winners Here Tonight: Race, Politics, and Geography in One of the Country's Busiest Death Penalty States. Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 2008
Streib, Victor L.: The Fairer Death: Executing Women in Ohio. Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006

External links

These links are to official State of Ohio records regarding executions in the state and Ohio administrative rules and statutes pertaining to capital punishment in Ohio

Ohio Executions 1999 to Present from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
Capital Crimes Annual Reports 2007-2013 from the Ohio Attorney General's Office
Ohio Administrative Code 5120-9-12 Department of Rehabilitation and Correction -- Inmates sentenced to death (contains institutional rules for death row)
Ohio Revised Code § 2903.01 Aggravated murder
Ohio Revised Code §§ 2949.21-2949.31 Execution of sentence
Ohio Revised Code § 2929.02 Murder penalties
All Ohio death row inmates
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (Location of execution chamber).
Ohio State Penitentiary (Location of death row for male inmates)
Ohio Reformatory for Women (Location of death row for female inmates)
Laws of the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio : including the laws of the governor and judges, the Maxwell Code, and the laws of the three sessions of the Territorial Legislature, 1791-1802 : with a sketch of the State of Ohio, the Ordinance of 1787, etc. (The Marietta Code up to one year before Ohio's statehood)
The statutes of Ohio and of the Northwestern territory, adopted or enacted from 1788 to 1833 inclusive: together with the Ordinance of 1787; the constitutions of Ohio and of the United States, and various public instruments and acts of Congress: illustrated by a preliminary sketch of the history of Ohio; numerous references and notes and copious indexes ... (The Marietta Code updated until 1833)
Death House tour on YouTube