Post by carolinem on Sept 11, 2007 5:38:51 GMT -5
Ohio Abolitionists See Light at End of Tunnel
Adrianne Appel
BOSTON, Aug 30 (IPS) - Support is slowly growing for the abolition of the death penalty in the U.S. Midwestern state of Ohio, considered by rights activists as a key state because of its historic, strong stand for the death penalty.
"We are the state in the north that has killed the most people," Jeffrey Gamso, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, told IPS. "But there are signs that even in a state like Ohio things are on the verge of starting to turn around."
Gamso added: "Public support for the death penalty is down and death sentences are way down from a few years ago. Ohio is ripe for moving towards abolition." Juries were increasingly reluctant to agree to a prosecutor's call for a death sentence, reflecting the waning support for the ultimate sanction from the public at large.
As an indication of this, activists point to the swell of public opposition to the death penalty expressed last February. The new state governor, Tom Strickland, suspended three executions so he could review the cases. At the time, letters to the governor against the death penalty outnumbered those supporting it five-to-one, according to the Associated Press.
Currently 38 out of the 50 U.S. states still employ the death penalty but support in many states appears to be waning. New Jersey, Maryland and Connecticut may abolish the death penalty within a year or two, says David Elliot of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Ohio could follow some years later, Gamso and others in Ohio say.
Ohio reinstated the death penalty in 1974 and since 1999 has executed 26 inmates, including two so far this year. It has 185 people waiting on death row, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. It has executed 369 people in its history.
The southern state of Texas leads the country in executions. Since 1976, when the death sentence was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas has executed 400 inmates, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Centre.
The waning support for the death penalty in Ohio is explained by growing concern that innocent people may have been put to death and new information that death by lethal injection may cause suffering, activists say. There has also been mounting evidence of racial bias in handing down death sentences.
Since 1999, six people on Ohio's death row have been found to be innocent and been released from death row. This is a major reason for increased public doubt about the death penalty, Jim Tobin, an official with Ohioans to Stop Executions, told IPS.
Criminal defence lawyers are also on the offensive challenging the state's lethal injection method of execution, fighting a case-by-case struggle in the courts. They have succeeded in recently halting most executions in Ohio on these grounds, rights activists say.
But up to now politicians have lacked the political will to follow the example of several other U.S. states and order a moratorium on executions because of these concerns, Gamso and others said.
"The governor could if he wanted to. He has absolute power to do these things. (But) he has repeatedly said he would not," Gamso said.
Inertia has also been shown by other state institutions. "The state legislature and the state's supreme court could act but have so far chosen not to do so," Tobin said. "The make-up of the state courts is also not in our favour."
Since taking up office last January, the state's attorney general Marc Dann has failed to live up to expectations that he might act against the death penalty. In the months prior to his election, he said that he had significant doubts about the fairness of Ohio's death penalty system and wanted the state to conduct an analysis of it. He has so far failed to call for this investigation.
But three death penalty cases in the state continue to keep the issue in the news and are contributing to the continuing erosion of public confidence in the death sentence. They are also putting state officials under growing pressure to take a public stand.
The most publicised is that of Kenny Richey, on death row for 20 years. He was convicted of the arson murder of a two-year-old child. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence and he maintains he is innocent.
The U.S. Court of Appeals has twice ruled Richey's death sentence should be overturned because he received inadequate legal representation at his trial. In its devastatingly critical ruling on the conviction, the court said "the prosecution' s case depended on a cast of witnesses whose lives revolved around drinking and partying and some of whom might have had their own motives for implicating Richey".
On Aug. 10, the court reaffirmed its first 2005 ruling and ordered the state court to retry or release him within 90 days.
A second case that has shaken public confidence in the death penalty is that of John Spirko, scheduled for execution in July but given a 120-day reprieve by Governor Strickland. This was Spirko's seventh reprieve because of doubts over his guilt. No physical evidence ties him to the crime, and charges against a co-defendant who linked him to the murder were dropped.
"Spirko's case is another clear sign that Ohio's system does not work," said Sister Alice Gerdeman in a statement. Gerdeman heads Ohioans to Stop Executions, which has gathered together a coalition of 118 organisations and cities, including Cincinnati, Dayton and Oberlin, campaigning for a state moratorium on executions. The coalition also wants an investigation into the operation of the state's capital punishment system.
Public concern over the fairness of the death penalty system has also been voiced over the case of Jason Getsy, a convicted killer-for-hire, who was 19 years old when he committed the crime in 1995. He was given a death sentence, while the man who orchestrated the murder was not.
A federal court recently denied Getsy's appeal. But six of the 14 judges dissented, saying Getsy's sentence was not fair. His case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, his lawyer, Michael Benza, told IPS.
Judge Boyce Martin, delivering his dissenting judgement, said the case showed that the death penalty was "arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair".
Groups campaigning against the death penalty in the state believe they will receive wide public support when they hold a rally and lobby day at the state's legislature on Sep. 26.
The public is tiring of the "idea that we can kill our way out of our problems", Tobin, one of the rights activists who will be present on that day, said.
Adrianne Appel
BOSTON, Aug 30 (IPS) - Support is slowly growing for the abolition of the death penalty in the U.S. Midwestern state of Ohio, considered by rights activists as a key state because of its historic, strong stand for the death penalty.
"We are the state in the north that has killed the most people," Jeffrey Gamso, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, told IPS. "But there are signs that even in a state like Ohio things are on the verge of starting to turn around."
Gamso added: "Public support for the death penalty is down and death sentences are way down from a few years ago. Ohio is ripe for moving towards abolition." Juries were increasingly reluctant to agree to a prosecutor's call for a death sentence, reflecting the waning support for the ultimate sanction from the public at large.
As an indication of this, activists point to the swell of public opposition to the death penalty expressed last February. The new state governor, Tom Strickland, suspended three executions so he could review the cases. At the time, letters to the governor against the death penalty outnumbered those supporting it five-to-one, according to the Associated Press.
Currently 38 out of the 50 U.S. states still employ the death penalty but support in many states appears to be waning. New Jersey, Maryland and Connecticut may abolish the death penalty within a year or two, says David Elliot of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Ohio could follow some years later, Gamso and others in Ohio say.
Ohio reinstated the death penalty in 1974 and since 1999 has executed 26 inmates, including two so far this year. It has 185 people waiting on death row, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. It has executed 369 people in its history.
The southern state of Texas leads the country in executions. Since 1976, when the death sentence was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas has executed 400 inmates, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Centre.
The waning support for the death penalty in Ohio is explained by growing concern that innocent people may have been put to death and new information that death by lethal injection may cause suffering, activists say. There has also been mounting evidence of racial bias in handing down death sentences.
Since 1999, six people on Ohio's death row have been found to be innocent and been released from death row. This is a major reason for increased public doubt about the death penalty, Jim Tobin, an official with Ohioans to Stop Executions, told IPS.
Criminal defence lawyers are also on the offensive challenging the state's lethal injection method of execution, fighting a case-by-case struggle in the courts. They have succeeded in recently halting most executions in Ohio on these grounds, rights activists say.
But up to now politicians have lacked the political will to follow the example of several other U.S. states and order a moratorium on executions because of these concerns, Gamso and others said.
"The governor could if he wanted to. He has absolute power to do these things. (But) he has repeatedly said he would not," Gamso said.
Inertia has also been shown by other state institutions. "The state legislature and the state's supreme court could act but have so far chosen not to do so," Tobin said. "The make-up of the state courts is also not in our favour."
Since taking up office last January, the state's attorney general Marc Dann has failed to live up to expectations that he might act against the death penalty. In the months prior to his election, he said that he had significant doubts about the fairness of Ohio's death penalty system and wanted the state to conduct an analysis of it. He has so far failed to call for this investigation.
But three death penalty cases in the state continue to keep the issue in the news and are contributing to the continuing erosion of public confidence in the death sentence. They are also putting state officials under growing pressure to take a public stand.
The most publicised is that of Kenny Richey, on death row for 20 years. He was convicted of the arson murder of a two-year-old child. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence and he maintains he is innocent.
The U.S. Court of Appeals has twice ruled Richey's death sentence should be overturned because he received inadequate legal representation at his trial. In its devastatingly critical ruling on the conviction, the court said "the prosecution' s case depended on a cast of witnesses whose lives revolved around drinking and partying and some of whom might have had their own motives for implicating Richey".
On Aug. 10, the court reaffirmed its first 2005 ruling and ordered the state court to retry or release him within 90 days.
A second case that has shaken public confidence in the death penalty is that of John Spirko, scheduled for execution in July but given a 120-day reprieve by Governor Strickland. This was Spirko's seventh reprieve because of doubts over his guilt. No physical evidence ties him to the crime, and charges against a co-defendant who linked him to the murder were dropped.
"Spirko's case is another clear sign that Ohio's system does not work," said Sister Alice Gerdeman in a statement. Gerdeman heads Ohioans to Stop Executions, which has gathered together a coalition of 118 organisations and cities, including Cincinnati, Dayton and Oberlin, campaigning for a state moratorium on executions. The coalition also wants an investigation into the operation of the state's capital punishment system.
Public concern over the fairness of the death penalty system has also been voiced over the case of Jason Getsy, a convicted killer-for-hire, who was 19 years old when he committed the crime in 1995. He was given a death sentence, while the man who orchestrated the murder was not.
A federal court recently denied Getsy's appeal. But six of the 14 judges dissented, saying Getsy's sentence was not fair. His case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, his lawyer, Michael Benza, told IPS.
Judge Boyce Martin, delivering his dissenting judgement, said the case showed that the death penalty was "arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair".
Groups campaigning against the death penalty in the state believe they will receive wide public support when they hold a rally and lobby day at the state's legislature on Sep. 26.
The public is tiring of the "idea that we can kill our way out of our problems", Tobin, one of the rights activists who will be present on that day, said.