By Tessa Gervasini·DC Bureau

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said this week that the state should end the death penalty, with the governor arguing that he no longer believes it is a “deterrent” to murder.

“I believe Ohio should abolish the death penalty,” the Catholic Republican governor said at a June 16 press conference. “The Legislature can take this action, and I believe they should take this action.”

“But if the Legislature does not want to make that decision, they can leave it up to a vote of the people of the state of Ohio,” he said.

After DeWine was elected to the state Senate in 1980, he co-sponsored a bill that sought to reinstate the death penalty in Ohio.

DeWine supported the policy at the time believing it would lessen violent crime, he said at the press conference, but, he argued, “the moral justification I had for voting for the death penalty simply no longer exists.”

Each decade that the death penalty has been in effect, “the chances of a murderer getting executed get more and more remote,” DeWine said. Therefore, “it is today impossible to make the case that the death penalty is a deterrent.”

“For the state to take a human life, there … must be evidence that in doing so, it will help protect the public [and] that the threat of that action will deter someone from committing murder,” he said.

“I do not believe that argument today can be successfully made, nor do I believe that thereʼs any chance [of successfully making it] in the future,” he said.

The term-limited governor, whose second term will end in 2027, has repeatedly postponed scheduled executions in the state since taking office in early 2019.

He has cited issues involving “the willingness of pharmaceutical suppliers to provide drugs to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, pur­suant to DRC pro­to­col, with­out endan­ger­ing other Ohioans.”

“We also cannot talk about capital punishment without talking about those we task with carrying it out,” DeWine said.

“While it is true they are ‘volunteers,’ we still must be mindful of the impact preparations for and the carrying out of executions have on them. They are the forgotten people — but they are real people. They are our fellow Ohioans.”

DeWine used the example of Gary Mohr, who served as the director of the state Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections from 2011 until 2018.

“During that time, he supervised 15 executions,” DeWine said, and he “summarize[d] the toll on the staff in this one sentence: ‘The heaviness felt by the execution team and by the support staff is indescribable.’”

“Our money and our energies are much better spent focusing on keeping these repeat violent offenders out of society than focusing on the death penalty,” DeWine said.

“Throughout my career, Iʼve always stated that the most important way to protect the public is to lock up violent criminals and to keep them out of society. Keep them locked up. That is a proven way of saving lives and protecting our citizens.”

DeWine said that any “decision to officially end the death penalty in Ohio could not change the horror and the anger that we all feel in regard to these murderers, nor the deep sorrow we feel for the victims and for their families.”

“These murderers ended the life of a precious human being. These murderers have changed the lives of the surviving family members forever. Their lives will never be the same.”

During a question-and-answer session at the press conference, DeWine declined to comment when asked if he would begin commuting death sentences in the state.

Praise from Catholic anti-death penalty group

DeWine’s “call for the abolishment of capital punishment in Ohio is an encouraging sign and reflects growing recognition that the state can move toward a more just and life-affirming approach,” Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the executive director of the anti-death penalty Catholic Mobilizing Network, told EWTN News.

“Gov. DeWine is a Catholic whose faith has always inspired his public service,” Vaillancourt said.

“As fellow Catholics who advocate for the dignity of every human life, we urge him to go further and grant clemency to those on Ohio’s death row. The time to act is now,” she said.

Catholic Conference of Ohio responds

Brian Hickey, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio, said in a statement June 16: “Several of Ohio’s death row inmates have found redemption through the Catholic faith. They have repented of their egregious crimes and seek to live as witnesses to a better way of life through prayer, penance, and service to other inmates.”

The statement thanked DeWine for acknowledging the burden placed on state workers involved in carrying out executions, calling the act morally wrong and contrary to Catholic teaching. Hickey praised DeWine’s pro-life legacy, from protecting “Ohioans from the very beginning of life to those who, at one time, blatantly disregarded the humanity of others and need to face justice.” Hickey also noted that DeWine’s attention to victims and their families accords with the Church’s perspective that the state should focus on supporting them rather than adding more violence.

“Eliminating the state’s ability to kill citizens is not a partisan issue. More and more Republicans support the State of Ohio removing the death penalty due to their Christian faith or understanding the flawed practice of a state’s human execution system. As Gov. DeWine noted convincingly, the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to the unacceptable violence we witness in Ohio’s communities,” Hickey said.