Republican Gov. Mike DeWine wants Ohio to abolish the death penalty,
saying it is not a deterrent
[June 17, 2026]
By JULIE CARR SMYTH and PATRICK AFTOORA-ORSAGOS
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who has repeatedly
postponed executions over the past seven years, said Tuesday that Ohio
should abolish the death penalty, confirming his change of heart on the
policy he helped write as a state legislator 45 years ago.
DeWine, 79, said during a news conference that data indicates the death
penalty is not serving as a deterrent to violent crime, which he had
always believed was its moral imperative.
“I do not believe that argument today can be successfully made, nor do I
believe that there’s any chance in the future the facts that I’ve cited
to support that belief will change,” he said. “Therefore, I believe Ohio
should abolish the death penalty.”
To bolster his case, DeWine brandished charts and graphs detailing the
diminishing number of death sentences meted out by courts and showing
the exceedingly long wait times that elapse as legal appeals play out
for those on death row. He said condemned murderers are increasingly
unlikely to ever be executed, sometimes dying by natural causes or by
suicide before their execution date arrives.
“In summary, each decade that the death penalty has been in effect, the
chances of a murderer getting executed get more and more and more
remote,” DeWine said.
He also cited years of pain brought to victims’ loved ones by the delays
and the toll taken on the mental health of state employees who serve on
execution teams.
DeWine, facing a term limit in December, said he felt compelled to share
his observations now, having had 50 years of experience with the issue
from the time he was a young county prosecutor, through being a
congressman and U.S. senator, then as Ohio's attorney general. But he
said his outright opposition has only crystallized over the past year.
Divided reaction to DeWine’s position
Headed into the announcement, any chance of a legislative repeal of the
death penalty appeared unlikely. Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman
has said he would oppose such an effort.
In repeatedly extending Ohio’s unofficial death penalty moratorium by
postponing scheduled executions, DeWine has cited pharmaceutical
suppliers’ unwillingness to provide the drugs used in lethal injections.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump ordered then-U.S. Attorney
General Pam Bondi to help states try to resolve that issue.
Interim Ohio Republican Attorney General Andy Wilson expressed relief
that DeWine didn’t choose to use commutations and that his office will
continue working to uphold the current law.
DeWine has already said he expects no further executions during his
term, but he said the compelling nature of the death penalty data
remains the same whether you include the past seven years, when
executions have been on hold, or not.
Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, said the
governor’s decision is in line with “an evolution on the death penalty”
across the political spectrum in Ohio.
“Nobody supports a system that harms victim families, convicts innocent
people and wastes millions of dollars without a shred of improved public
safety,” Werner said.
Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, said his
group had been anticipating DeWine’s announcement, which he called
“well-reasoned.”
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal
Foundation, which supports the death penalty and crime victims’ rights,
said DeWine may be right that Ohio’s death penalty isn’t currently
serving as a deterrent.
However, "what is needed is the political will and effective
leadership,” Scheidegger said.
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Kyle Rubin, of Columbus, Ohio, protests against the death
penalty in Terre Haute, Ind., July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael
Conroy, File)
Death penalty's future being debated nationally
The governor noted that Ohio is far from the only state where such
trends exist. Use of and support for the death penalty has been on
the decline nationally for two decades.
Currently, 27 states allow the death penalty and 23 do not,
according to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information
Center. Ohio is among four states where executions are paused by
executive action. The center reported in 2023 that more Americans
now believe the death penalty is administered unfairly than fairly,
a first.
Texas has executed 600 people since it resumed the death penalty in
1982. Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach, who has met with death row
inmates and advocated for reforms, led a group of state lawmakers
last year who successfully halted the first execution in the U.S.
tied to a murder conviction for shaken baby syndrome.
Then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan, also a Republican, signed off on the
execution of one killer then decided not to carry out any more. In
virtually his last act as governor, he emptied death row with
pardons and commutations in 2003. Numerous governors have commuted
some number of death sentences or granted broad blanket clemency to
condemned inmates in the years since to empty portions of their
death rows.
But the nation remains divided.
Since 2019, Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia have eliminated the
death penalty, while five states have approved nitrogen gas
executions since 2024 to get around issues with lethal injection
protocols. Meanwhile, Trump pushes to expand federal executions.
During his first term, Trump’s administration carried out 13 federal
executions, more than under any president in modern history.
DeWine’s position has evolved over time
Pushing back execution dates has left Ohio with 30 scheduled over
the next four years, according to the Ohio Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction. Ohio hasn’t put an inmate to death
since July 18, 2018, the year before DeWine took office.
The state reinstated capital punishment in 1981 under a law
co-written by DeWine. Ohio resumed death penalties in 1999, and 56
people have since died by lethal injection in the state.
DeWine’s support has slowly shifted since his political career began
in 1976. As attorney general, DeWine ordered the Ohio prison system
to consider alternative lethal injection drugs. A year later, in
2020, he said lawmakers would have to choose a different method
before any more inmates could be executed.
Since then, neither a bipartisan push to ban the practice nor a
competing effort to bring nitrogen gas executions to Ohio has gone
anywhere. A nitrogen gas execution in Alabama was halted last week,
after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to set aside a lower-court
ruling that found the method unconstitutionally cruel.
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Associated Press writer John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia,
contributed.
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