Murder victims’ families call to end death penalty in Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The families of murder victims are pushing Ohio lawmakers to end the death penalty.

They continue to fight executions in Ohio, saying the appeals process makes the cases agonizingly difficult. For the Rev. Crystal Walker, the death penalty is not a solution to the grief and anger she feels since her son’s death.

Her son, Edward Michael Powers, was shot and killed in Dayton in 2013. The shooting is still under investigation.

“The death penalty is an empty promise of justice,” she said Monday at a press conference in Columbus. “There are families who have been promised that the person who killed their loved ones will be executed, yet they wait for decades of court appearances and media exposure and uncertainty. Only to learn that the person being sentenced was commuted or died of natural causes.”

Walker, a board member of Ohioans to Stop Executions, said more resources are needed for the families of murder victims, including financial help for funerals and ceremonies.

The push by families comes as Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine continues to postpone executions, as the state does not have the drugs needed for lethal injection.

DeWine has repeatedly expressed his concern that if a pharmaceutical company finds that Ohio used its drugs to put people to death, it will refuse to sell any of its drugs – not just the ones used in executions – to the state. That would endanger the ability of thousands of Ohioans – such as Medicaid recipients, state troopers and prison inmates – to get drugs through state programs.

As a result, DeWine said in 2020 that there would be no more executions in Ohio unless state lawmakers pick an alternative execution method – a step the legislature has so far shown no interest in taking. Since taking office, DeWine has repeatedly pushed back death-row inmates’ execution dates.

In August, Louis Tobin, the director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, wrote an op-ed piece for The Dayton Daily News that called the death penalty “society’s expression of moral outrage at the most heinous crimes.” He urged people “to stop treating criminals like victims.”

The families of victims, however, say they must deal with the tragedies for years.

David Taynor of Columbus talked Monday about the death of his brother, Daniel. He was shot and killed in Kentucky in 2010. He called the judicial process “excruciatingly slow.”

Dozens of Ohioans, including Walker and Taynor, signed a letter sent to Ohio legislators that called the death penalty a “false promise that goes unfulfilled.”

“Victims’ families in capital cases go back to court for years on end, where the press replays the details of the crime again and again,” the letter said. “The result is that the defendant is turned into a celebrity while the victim’s family waits for a punishment that never comes. This system burdens the vast majority of cases that don’t result in a death sentence.

“And as the state hangs onto this broken system, it wastes millions of dollars that could go toward much needed victims’ services.”

Currently, 118 inmates sit on Ohio’s death row, making it the sixth largest in the country, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Twenty-two are from Cuyahoga County, with most of them sent there in the early to mid-2000s, according to state records.

It has been more than five years since an inmate has been put to death in Ohio. Robert Van Hook was executed at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville on July 18, 2018.

Van Hook’s execution took place more than 30 years after he stabbed a man to death in Cincinnati. The 58-year-old had no remaining appeals, and Republican Gov. John Kasich rejected his request for clemency without comment.

Keith LaMar of Cleveland had been scheduled to be executed Thursday. That was pushed back earlier this summer to Jan. 13, 2027. He was convicted of aggravated murder in 1995 for the deaths during the Lucasville prison riots. He received the death penalty for four of the killings.

Taynor, who is an attorney, said he was in support of the death penalty when he entered law school.

“Taking someone’s life in the name of someone else’s is not justice. It is simply state-sponsored murder,” he said Monday.

Walker said the death penalty is not the answer for justice. She hopes more focus is placed on crime prevention and creating community.

“It is my fervent prayer that there will come a day when violence will cease forever, and my faith tells me that this is possible,” Walker said. “Yet it is only possible if we move away from policies that embrace violence and death as the ultimate solution.”