By Ben Jealous
Ohio’s Republican governor helped bring back the death penalty. Now he says it has lost its moral justification.
Ohio’s Republican House speaker wants to keep it. Meanwhile, he seems content to let bipartisan legislation to abolish capital punishment stay stuck in committee, blocking any chance of getting a bill to the governor’s desk.
Forty-five years ago, Mike DeWine believed executions would deter murder and save innocent lives.
This summer, he said he was wrong.
“The moral justification I had,” DeWine declared, “no longer exists.”
That should have sparked an extraordinary debate in Columbus. A survey of Ohio lawmakers found majority support for repeal among respondents. Yet Speaker Matt Huffman remains opposed, and the House bill has not reached a floor vote.
DeWine spent decades as a prosecutor, legislator, attorney general and governor, watching the law he helped create. He concluded its original justification no longer held up.
He is hardly alone. Twenty-seven former Ohio lawmakers signed a letter urging repeal of the death penalty law enacted in 1981. Some helped make that law.
What changed? Experience.
Decades of research have failed to demonstrate that executions deter murder. In a survey of leading American criminologists, 88 percent rejected the claim that capital punishment effectively reduces homicide.
Earlier research comparing neighboring states, including Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, found no consistent deterrent advantage. That does not prove executions cause more murders. It means their promised lifesaving benefit remains unproven.
Huffman defends executions for the most heinous crimes.
Some crimes are so terrible that words fail us. Families who lose loved ones deserve justice, compassion and safety. But life without parole can keep a murderer imprisoned until death.
What additional good does execution accomplish?
If the answer is retribution, that raises a question far older than our republic.
Pope Leo XIV has reaffirmed Catholic teaching that capital punishment violates human dignity. More than 500 Ohio faith leaders have urged lawmakers to abolish it.
Christians disagree about capital punishment. But the Apostle Paul warned against confusing justice with revenge. Quoting Scripture, he wrote: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
Regardless of one’s faith, when government becomes an instrument of vengeance, it violates a foundational principle of civilization: justice must rise above revenge.
Ohio taxpayers also bear the cost.
Attorney General Dave Yost, who favors resuming executions, reports that 337 people received death sentences under Ohio’s modern law. Only 56 had been executed through 2025. None since 2018.
Death sentences require expensive trials and appeals, often followed by decades of confinement. Yost’s office cites estimates of $116 million to $348 million in additional capital-case costs, extrapolated from other states.
Meanwhile, DeWine announced $3.4 million in violent-crime-reduction grants this April for 44 law enforcement agencies across 28 Ohio counties.
Imagine what sustained investment could do for unsolved murders in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, for witnesses afraid to testify, and for families living with violent loss.
Repeal would not immediately release those estimated costs into police budgets. But resources are finite. Money devoted to pursuing death sentences cannot simultaneously be spent preventing violence.
Then consider Elwood Jones. After 27 years on Ohio’s death row, prosecutors dismissed his murder charge in December 2025 following the reversal of his conviction for withheld evidence.
You can release someone wrongfully imprisoned. You cannot bring back someone wrongfully executed.
Republicans Jean Schmidt and Adam Mathews sponsor House repeal legislation. Republican Stephen Huffman and Democrat Nickie Antonio sponsor Senate measures.
The House bill received an initial hearing in March 2025. It has not advanced out of committee.
If Huffman opposes repeal, he owes the public and his fellow lawmakers a real debate. Is preserving the death penalty about protecting Ohioans, or about retribution?
Let him explain why executions deserve scarce public-safety dollars. And let his colleagues vote.
DeWine helped create this law. After 45 years, he reconsidered what justice, safety and human dignity require.
The governor has put his conscience on the record. Maybe it’s time for Ohio’s speaker to check his own.
Ben Jealous is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and former national president and CEO of the NAACP.
