HISTORY OF THE DEATH PENALTY IN OHIO

From our earliest days as a state until the end of the 19th century, Ohio sent those who had committed capital crimes to the gallows. From 1972 on, executions were held at the prison in Lucasville, Ohio. Ohio used the more technologically advanced electric chair that was seen as more humane for the period 1897 until 2001. Since then, all executions have been by lethal injection. However, the humaneness of lethal injections is now being questioned by public defenders in a number of states, including Ohio.

A moratorium on executions existed in Ohio from 1963 until 1999. Indeed, no one was executed in the U.S. between June 3, 1967, and January 17, 1977. In 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court found in the case of Furman v. Georgia that Georgia's death penalty sentencing (similar to Ohio's) was arbitrary and discriminatory, and it thus violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Responding to the high court's decision, the Ohio General Assembly revised the state's death penalty statute in 1974, but the revision was found to be unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court in 1978. As a result of the two courts' findings, a total of 185 prisoners on Ohio's death row had their sentences commuted to life in prison.

The current Ohio statute defining capital crimes was enacted in 1981. In 2001, lethal injection became the only method of execution in Ohio.

From 1887 to 2004, Ohio has executed a total of 351 people -- with eight more scheduled for 2004.

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