An Ohio Republican has renewed calls for her state to abolish the death penalty.
Lawmakers in Ohio last year introduced bipartisan legislation to end capital punishment in the state. However, the bills have not moved out of committee.
The state’s ongoing inability to obtain lethal injection drugs led to an unofficial moratorium on executions in the state, with Republican Gov. Mike DeWine instructing lawmakers to find an alternative method in 2020. He has delayed several executions since.
State Senator Michele Reynolds, a Republican, said now is the time to push forward with abolishing the death penalty in Ohio.
A view of the death chamber from the witness room at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility shows an electric chair and gurney August 29, 2001 in Lucasville, Ohio. An Ohio Republican has called for… A view of the death chamber from the witness room at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility shows an electric chair and gurney August 29, 2001 in Lucasville, Ohio. An Ohio Republican has called for the end of the death penalty in the state.
Mike Simons/Getty Images
Reynolds said the she wants to end the death penalty in her state because she is “pro-life.”
“Being pro-life is really about life period, all life,” she said, according to WBNS-10TV.
Proponents of the death penalty often cite the families of victims, but Reynolds said executions do not necessarily bring them closure.
“There have been a lot of families who have spoken about the death penalty just saying that because of the appeals and them having to relive and not really getting justice,” she said.
Newsweek has contacted Reynolds for comment via email. DeWine and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s offices have also been contacted for comment via email.
There are currently 119 inmates on the state’s death row, according to the 2023 Capital Crimes Report from Yost’s office. The cost of putting all of those inmates to death could cost between $121 million and $363 million, according to the report.
Ohio is one of six states where executions have been halted through executive action, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The state last executed an inmate on July 18, 2018.
Ohio is among 27 states that still have the death penalty, while 23 states and Washington, D.C. have abolished it, including states in the Midwest: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.
“I just think at this point we can join other Midwestern states and move forward in this conversation, and I think it’s a conversation worth having,” Reynolds said.
Use of the death penalty and public support for it is declining, but the drive to end it in Ohio comes as other state lawmakers are pushing to restart executions in the state.
House Bill 392 would allow death row inmates to choose between lethal injection and nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution and if lethal injection drugs are not available, nitrogen hypoxia would be used to put them to death.
Earlier this year, Alabama became the first state to put an inmate to death using the method, which critics have called cruel and experimental.
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