New Death Penalty Information Center report presents racialized view of Ohio’s capital punishment history

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) today published this new report on Ohio capital punishment history titled “Broken Promises: How a History of Racial Violence and Bias Shaped Ohio’s Death Penalty.” In this press release about the report, DPIC asserts that it “does not take a position on the death penalty itself,” but all of its work clearly draws from an anti-capital punishment perspective.  This report is quite critical of Ohio’s capital punishment history and current state as reflected in this description of the report from portions of the press release:

As Ohio legislators debate expanding or repealing the death penalty, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) today released a report that documents how racial bias and violence affected the past use of the death penalty in Ohio and how that history continues to influence the current administration of capital punishment in the state.  None of the reforms recommended by a bipartisan task force 10 years ago to reduce racial disparities in capital cases have been adopted.

The report, “Broken Promises: How A History of Racial Violence and Bias Shaped Ohio’s Death Penalty” and “Five Facts You Should Know About Ohio’s Death Penalty” are available at this link….

As the report documents, racial discrimination is the throughline that runs from the state’s founding to its application of capital punishment today.  For example, from the early 19th century, Ohio’s Black Laws imposed legal restrictions on the rights and status of Black people in the state, including barring Black people from jury service.  In 1807, Ohio adopted a “Negro Evidence Law” which prohibited Black people from testifying against white people, establishing a legal double standard.  In the 19th and early 20th centuries, lynch mobs tortured and killed Black men after accusing them of raping white women without evidence.  Even when photos were taken in broad daylight of lynch mob participants, they rarely faced legal consequences for these extrajudicial murders.

As the report reveals, race, especially the race of the victim, continues to play an outsized role in Ohio’s death penalty system.  For example, homicides involving white female victims are six times more likely to result in execution compared to those involving Black male victims, despite the majority of murder victims in the state being Black. Similarly, a study of aggravated murder charges in Hamilton County shows that prosecutors are four and a half times more likely to seek the death penalty if there is at least one white victim, compared to similar cases without white victims….

“Broken Promises” builds upon DPIC’s 2020 report, “Enduring Injustice: The Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty.” It is the fourth in a series of reports detailing how individual state histories of racial injustice affect the current use of capital punishment. In 2023, DPIC released “Doomed to Repeat: The Legacy of Race in Tennessee’s Contemporary Death Penalty” and “Compromised Justice: How A Legacy of Racial Violence Informs Missouri’s Death Penalty Today.” In 2022, DPIC released “Deeply Rooted: How Racial History Informs Oklahoma’s Death Penalty.