Capital punishment in Ohio
[7] This practice of naming the State Prison's warden executioner seems to have continued well into the 20th Century, as can be learned from the 1938 death sentence against Anna Marie Hahn.
[12][14] McGuire took 25 minutes to die, an unusually long time for an execution,[14] being among the longest since Ohio resumed capital punishment in 1999.
[15] In January 2015, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction announced that all executions scheduled for the remainder of that year would be postponed due to the lack of availability of required drugs.
In October 2015, the department further announced that Governor John Kasich had granted additional reprieves to all inmates due to be executed in 2016 for the same reason.
The execution was carried out at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in unincorporated Scioto County, just outside the community of Lucasville.
[18][19] On December 8, 2020, Governor Mike DeWine placed what he called an “unofficial moratorium” on capital punishment in the state, as a result of the impossibility to acquire drugs needed to carry out a lethal injection.
[24] Notable inmates on Ohio's death row include serial killers Shawn Grate, Anthony Kirkland, and Michael Madison.
The only woman on Ohio's death row is Donna Roberts, who murdered her ex-husband in order to collect his life insurance.
Thomas Edison, a resident of Akron, Ohio, as well as New York, New Jersey, and Michigan, directed his employees to develop the electric chair.
In the case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence is issued, even if only a single juror opposed death (there is no retrial).
[28] Despite opposing the death penalty, Michael DiSalle allowed six of the 12 cases he reviewed as governor to proceed, stating that he would have otherwise violated his oath of office.
The former Speaker of the House in Ohio, also Republican, Larry Householder, wants the legislature to reconsider the law because of the cost of executions and the failure of the state to obtain drugs.
[32][33] The Los Angeles Times noted in October 2009 that Ohio had three botched executions by lethal injection since 2006: Joseph Lewis Clark, Christopher Newton and Romell Broom.
[35] The Atlantic magazine wrote that on January 14, 2014, Dennis McGuire took over 11 minutes to die and was unable to breathe, during a lethal injection in Ohio's death chamber.
"Over those 11 minutes or more he was fighting for breath, and I could see both of his fists were clenched the entire time," recounted Father Lawrence Hummer, an execution witness.
