The House Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony in support of abolishing Ohio’s death penalty on December 14th. The committee heard from Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer (a Republican who authored the current death penalty law as a legislator in 1981), murder victims’ family members, death row exonerees, former prisons officials, capital defense attorneys, academics, faith leaders and advocacy groups.
In total, the hearing lasted three hours and was widely covered by Ohio press outlets, including the Associated Press, the Columbus Dispatch, the Dayton Daily News, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Akron Beacon Journal.
Below are some quotes from testimony on December 14, 2011:
“I stand beside countless other victims’ families in Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation and other organizations who take the view that, in the end, vengeance only causes more pain. I understand the impulse to destroy the perpetrator in the name of something called “closure,” but what I’ve discovered in my own heart is that healing is only possible when I choose to stop the cycle of killing, rather than perpetuate it.”
Melinda Dawson, whose mother Judith Johnson, was murdered.
“To this day, we do not know who killed my son or why. We don’t know if the person responsible is still out there. My son is the victim of an unsolved murder and I would like to know what Ohio is doing about that. It doesn’t seem to be anything at all to me.
I am testifying before you today to tell you I am in favor of ending the death penalty system because it spends millions of dollars putting someone to death, but seems to do nothing to put money that could be better spent on needed resources into services for victims’ families and unsolved murders like my son’s. ”
Carmen Jackson, whose son Donta Edward, was murdered.
“As a murder victims’ family member I can tell you first hand that death penalty system completely ignores the real needs of people like me and my family. We need certainty, we need healing, we need to not be hauled into court again and again for 27 years and be retraumatized over and over.
I’m never asked, “What do you need, Chris?” Today I feel like I have the opportunity to tell you what I need, so I will. I need this system to stop. I need the death penalty to be over and I need people to listen to me when I say, “Do not do this for me or for my family. We’ve been through enough and we want it to end.”
Chris Stout, whose mother Mary Jane Stout, was murdered.
“I have walked people out of prison who were found to be not guilty after serving years of sentences for crimes they did not commit. No matter how great our system is and the safeguards we attempt to put in place, it is imperfect and, in my experience, cannot be made perfect. When death is the sentence, we cannot afford to make even one mistake. Each of the 33 times I witnessed an execution I wondered, “Did our justice system get it right?”
Terry Collins, former Director, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections