Ohio death penalty committee releases final report

5/21/2014
ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS — A committee that spent over two years studying Ohio’s capital punishment law has released its final report with recommendations aimed at reducing the influence of race and geography on death penalty cases.

Proposals by the Ohio Supreme Court task force include a statewide capital punishment charging panel and a racial justice law allowing for complaints over race’s role in a case. The 56 recommendations released today also include a ban on the execution of people with a serious mental illness.

The committee says the recommendations, presented to Supreme Court Justice Maureen O’Connor and the Ohio State Bar Association, promote fairness in death penalty cases for defendants and the state.

Two prosecutors and a staffer for the attorney general issued a dissenting report saying many recommendations had an anti-death penalty bent.