Advocates against capital punishment say they’re pleased with comments from Gov. Mike DeWine, who says executions won’t proceed until the prisons department comes up with a new lethal injection process.
DeWine said until the lethal injection mixture can stand up to federal court scrutiny, the nearly two dozen executions scheduled between this May and 2022 won’t go forward. Kevin Werner with Ohioans to Stop Executions said that’s the right decision, but there needs to be an examination of the overall system and those who are on death row.
“They are people who are poor, who killed white victims, and who have some underlying substance abuse or abuse as children or have a mental illness – I mean, that’s who we’re talking about here,” Werner said.
Werner said lawmakers haven’t acted on recommendations they’ve had to improve the system. DeWine, a former prosecutor and attorney general, told reporters the death penalty is the law, but with DNA and other advances there’s more known today than when he voted to pass the law in 1981.
