Ohio death-penalty study? Various voices: No. 4

Regina Brett column calls for Ohio death penalty study:  Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Regina Brett has this column, entitled "Death penalty needs closer look."

In entirety:
Ohio, the heart of it all, might have a soul, too.

The new governor revealed it when he put executions on hold last week.

Gov. Ted Strickland wanted more time to consider clemency, a word not found in his predecessor's vocabulary.

As an ordained minister and former prison psychologist, the new governor must find it distasteful to execute human beings as punishment.

He was right to put the death penalty on hold. Even the state's new attorney general has concerns over whether the death penalty is applied fairly.

It isn't. Who gets sentenced to death is often based on race, place, poverty, poor prosecutors and the politics of plea bargains.

The Associated Press analyzed 1,936 indictments reported to the Ohio Supreme Court from the time the death penalty was enacted in 1981 through 2002. In liberal Cuyahoga County, 8 percent of capital crime offenders got the death penalty. In conservative Hamilton County, 43 percent got it.

Only 12 percent of Ohio's population is black, yet half of those on Ohio's death row are black.

About 90 percent of those who are facing capital charges can't afford an attorney.

Then there are the prosecutorial errors and misconduct:

John Spirko was convicted of aggravated murder in 1984. There was no physical evidence, plus a prosecutor hid vital evidence from Spirko's attorneys and the jury. The investigator who testified that Spirko confessed never produced a signed or taped confession.

Kenney Richey spent 20 years on death row. An appeals court ruled that his court-appointed attorney was inept and the arson "expert" was no expert.

Anthony Apanovitch was convicted of rape and murder in 1984 on circumstantial evidence. A hair found under the victim's bound hands didn't match his.

Arthur Tyler is on death row even though another man confessed in the murder of a 74-year-old produce vendor. After signing a confession, the man struck a deal and fingered Tyler.

Tyrone Noling sits on death row for the 1990 murders of an Atwater Township couple. Three buddies who testified against him have all recanted. No physical evidence linked Noling to the crime.

Joe D'Ambrosio and Thomas Keenan were convicted of a 1988 murder. The judge who ordered a new trial said that if the prosecutor had not withheld evidence, "no reasonable fact-finder would have found him guilty."

How many more examples does the governor need?
Illinois formed a special commission to review death-penalty cases. Ohio should do the same. The Illinois commission suggested 85 reforms, including:

Once a suspect is identified, police should still pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry, even if they point away from the suspect. Interrogations of homicide suspects should be videotaped.

Convictions for murder based upon the testimony of a single eyewitness or accomplice should not be death-penalty eligible.

All police, judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers working on capital cases must be educated about the risks of false testimony by jailhouse snitches and accomplice witnesses.

In 2004, the Ohio House approved a bill to create a commission to study all the cases on death row. The bill passed 85-8. It died in the Senate.

It's time to resurrect it before we kill anyone else.