Ohio to suspend death penalty system

Richard Schulte

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Ohio should temporarily suspend executions to allow a review of the state's capital punishment system because of several flaws, including racial and geographic imbalances, a team of lawyers concluded in a study to be released Monday.
''The state fails to provide adequate measures to protect defendants,'' ABA President William Neukom said in a statement. ''Nobody should be executed until the problems identified by these experts are addressed, and we urge a temporary halt to executions until fairness and accuracy are assured.''

The state's system is flawed by racial disparities in death penalty sentencing, including a greater likelihood of defendants being sentenced to death if a victim is white.

There are major differences in how counties sentence death row cases, for example, a defendant in Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, is far more likely to receive a death sentence than a defendant in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland.

For more information on this subject matter, please refer to the section on Wrongful Death.