By Jeremy Pelzer
cleveland.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Gov. Mike DeWine said Monday that while he’s looking at commuting some death-penalty sentences before leaving office in January, he won’t follow California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lead by issuing a blanket commutation for all 106 Ohio Death Row inmates.
“I’ve made the decision that I’m not going to do a blanket reduction as California did,” DeWine said in an interview. “We will look at every single case and make decisions based on that case.”
DeWine, a Republican who announced his personal opposition to the death penalty in June, has asked the Ohio Parole Board to review and make recommendations on death-sentence cases in at least 10 counties, including Cuyahoga, Summit, and Lorain counties in Northeast Ohio.
That includes two Cuyahoga County cases: DeWine has asked the state parole board to set clemency hearings for convicted murderers Denny Obermiller on Dec. 1 and Melvin Bonnell on Dec. 7 , according to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Lexi Bauer .
Under state law, Ohio’s governor can’t commute a sentence without a parole board recommendation.
DeWine said he didn’t know offhand how many cases he’s asked the parole board to review. He said he hasn’t yet decided how many sentences he will end up commuting, nor when he will announce his decision when he makes it.
“We’re just going through a process,” he said. “I think all governors do it.”
Since DeWine took office in 2019, he has consistently postponed scheduled execution dates as they arise, citing ongoing troubles with buying lethal-injection drugs from pharmaceutical companies worried about the moral and legal implications.
In June, the governor made a long-awaited announcement that he personally opposes capital punishment, saying he no longer believes it works as a deterrent and that the lengthy appeals process causes pain for victims’ families.
Since then, there has been speculation about whether DeWine might commute the sentences of every Death Row inmate in Ohio before he leaves office.
Anti-death penalty activists have been urging DeWine to make such a move, though supporters of capital punishment – including the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association – have just as energetically pushed him not to do it.
So far, DeWine has only taken one person off Death Row during his nearly eight years as governor: Cleveland murderer Gregory Lott , whose sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole in May.
Newsom, a Democrat, announced last week that he will commute the sentences of all 548 inmates on California’s Death Row to life in prison without parole.
Since 1976, 10 other governors across the U.S. have issued broad or blanket clemency to Death Row inmates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center , a Washington, D.C. -based think tank.
One of those governors was Democratic ex- Ohio Gov. Dick Celeste , who commuted eight death sentences in early 1991, a few days before he left office.
Gov.-elect Amy Acton, a Democrat who is set to succeed DeWine on Jan. 11 , said during this year’s campaign that she would continue Ohio’s de facto moratorium on executions until she can work out a bipartisan solution.
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