Attitudes on Death Penalty Evolving
By Heather Inglis and Rachel Godin
The death penalty is not the polarizing, hot button American issue that it once was. In fact, recent legislation and advocacy suggest that attitudes toward the death penalty in Ohio might be shifting. Topics of mental health, problems with the drugs and the acquisition of drugs used for lethal injection, as well as the perspectives of the families who deal with the aftermath of capital punishment on both sides have impacted the conversation.
In recent years, Ohio conservatives have switched gears in regard to their views on the death penalty. What have traditionally been more liberal views on the practice are now becoming the ideals of conservatives. A major point in this is the execution of innocent lives.
Preventing the execution of those wrongly sentenced is now being called a conservative value and some activists in Ohio are making it a point to combat the death penalty completely. They’re saying the death penalty is doing more harm than good and isn’t helping the justice system.
A prime example of this is the case of Dr. Sam Sheppard. Dr. Sheppard was put on death row for the killing of his wife, Marilyn, in 1954 in Cleveland. He was later exonerated for this crime but his son, Sam Reese Sheppard, is now a part of the movement against the death penalty.
A report from the National Research Council shows 88% of the experts polled rejected the notion that the death penalty lowered homicide rates in the United States. Yet, Ohio is still seventh in the country with those on death row—it has 145 inmates awaiting his or her fate.
Since 1973, Ohio has exonerated 10 death row inmates, according to a report compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center.
But there are other factors that are making some stray from the death penalty. Mental illness is something more and more prevalent in the United States, and is being taken into more consideration when determining prison or death sentences.
Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton focuses primarily on better handling mental health issues in court. Stratton said she seen juries take mental health issues and use them against defendants. Sometimes, these defendants end up on death row because of their mental health problems.
“The reality is that jurors would often take those [mental health] factors and use them as punishment instead of mitigating them so it would actually enhance the penalty.” Stratton said. “So we had the opposite effect as what was intended by the statute. We would get these verdicts with death penalties when there were clear mental health issues.”
[pullquote]I believe the way that it’s now administered is inefficient, it’s ineffective and it’s a huge problem to society” —Evelyn Lundberg Stratton[/pullquote]
Stratton has challenged the legislature to create new mental health standards for death row. She’s worked with Senator Bill Seitz, psychiatrists and the National Alliance of Mental Illness in order to craft the bill to fix these issues.
With all of this, Stratton says she’s not anti-death penalty. She would just rather see a better option upheld in Ohio’s court system.
“I believe in the death penalty. But I believe the way that it’s now administered is inefficient, it’s ineffective and it’s a huge problem to society,” Stratton said. “I don’t support it just in terms of that I don’t think it’s a useful tool I think we’d be better off with life without parole position than a death penalty. I’m not an anti-death penalty advocate.”