This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project - Cleveland, a nonprofit news team covering Ohio’s criminal justice systems.
Some people on Ohio’s death row praised Gov. Mike DeWine for having the courage to come out against the death penalty. Others said actions speak louder than words, and they want the governor to commute their death sentences to life without the possibility of parole.
But all agreed with the governor on one thing: Ohio’s death penalty law is broken. DeWine said long delays in carrying out executions undermine its intended function as a deterrent. Condemned prisoners resoundingly said that the possibility of being executed never stopped anyone from committing murder.
In the days after DeWine called on legislators to abolish the death penalty in Ohio during a press conference last month, The Marshall Project turned to the people who are awaiting execution in the state’s prisons. Sixteen responded, providing a rare perspective on capital punishment from those most directly affected by it.
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DeWine helped enact Ohio’s death penalty law 45 years ago as a young state legislator. In his statement last month, he said the decades it takes, on average, to carry out executions have rendered the sentence meaningless.
Several of the people we heard from said they had hoped, or even expected, to hear him say he would commute the sentences of the more than 100 people on the state’s death row to life without parole. But during his two terms in office, DeWine has commuted only one person’s death sentence.
Since his announcement, the governor has not answered questions about whether he might commute more before his term ends in January.
“All he did was kick the can down the road for others to deal with. And, to me, that made him a coward!” said Grady Brinkley, who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and sentenced to death in 2002.
Jeremiah Jackson, 46, was convicted in 2010 of murdering a laundromat employee in Cleveland during a series of robberies. He compared DeWine’s announcement to a candy wrapper: “Nothing sweet inside to have. Just something to look at.”
DeWine has not carried out an execution during his time in office, routinely saying that the drugs needed for lethal injection are not available. In his statement, he did not address the morality of executions, though some commended him for supporting a position increasingly embraced by pro-life conservatives.
“It takes courage to reexamine your beliefs and speak openly about that change,” said Stanley Jalowiec, who was convicted of murdering a police informant in 1994.
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Nearly all of the people we heard from on death row agreed that the death penalty does not deter crime.
It “never even entered my mind as I was committing my crimes. Why should it have?” asked George Brinkman, who received two death sentences for five murders in 2017.
“Nobody thinks: ‘I’m gonna rob this gas station and shoot a clerk,’” said Thomas Knuff Jr., who was convicted of fatally stabbing two people and sentenced to death in 2019. “I’m sure some crimes of murder are planned. But those people never think they will get caught, so they never think about a death penalty beforehand.”
Several said they were unaware, prior to their arrests, that Ohio has a death penalty, or that it has executed 56 people since 1981.
“I don’t know that capital punishment could ever be a deterrent to murder, no more than prisons are a deterrent to crime,” said Keith LaMar, who maintains that he is innocent of killing five prisoners in a 1993 riot at the state prison in Lucasville, for which he was sent to death row.
“People make decisions based on what they themselves perceive their options to be, and sometimes — most times — we can’t see what we can’t see,” he said.
Jalowiec agreed.
“Most of the guilty men I have spoken with never seriously considered the possibility of a death sentence before committing their crimes,” he said. “Many acted under the influence of drugs and alcohol, acted in a moment of rage, or simply believed they would never be caught. The possibility of execution was not part of their decision-making process.”
A growing body of research has found that the brain’s ability to fully reason, assess risks and check impulses continues to develop until a person’s mid-20s and sometimes later. About a third of Ohio’s death row prisoners were sentenced before they turned 25, and some were convicted of crimes committed when they were teenagers, according to a Marshall Project review of state prison records.
“I believe most death row inmates were kids when we caught our cases and hadn't fully matured into adulthood,” said Jonathan Monroe, who was 25 a quarter century ago when convicted of killing two women in Columbus in search of drugs. “Our upbringing, the abuse that we endured and the lack of proper guidance should all be factored in.”
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As governor, DeWine cannot unilaterally repeal the death penalty. He asked lawmakers to do that. And, if they don’t, he urged them to put the issue on the ballot for voters to decide.
Since 2011, Democratic legislators, and more recently some Republicans, have tried to repeal Ohio’s death penalty, proposing legislation that would set the maximum punishment at life without the possibility of parole.
Death row prisoners are not optimistic that lawmakers will give voters the chance, or that voters would ultimately support repeal.
“They have been talking about abolishing the death penalty since 2005. I know. I have been on this case since 1985,” said Percy Hutton, who has an execution date set for 2028. Hutton was convicted of fatally shooting a man during an argument.
Though DeWine said nothing about the possibility of wrongful convictions, several people said exonerations of people sentenced to death should give everyone pause.
“Lots of guys have been released over actual innocence from death sentences in America, and some were ultimately killed before DNA or other evidence cleared them,” said Knuff. “Death is absolute. Death is final.”
Opponents of the death penalty in Ohio released a report earlier this year highlighting a dozen people freed from the state’s death row after being wrongfully convicted.
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Beyond abolishing the death penalty, state officials should extend rehabilitation programs to people on death row, many respondents argued.
Edward Lang III was sentenced to death nearly 20 years ago at the age of 18 after being convicted of killing two people during a drug deal in Canton. If his sentence were commuted to life without parole, he said he would “join a college program. Get a state job to help provide for myself. These things are not available to death row, as we are just left to rot away.”
If the governor were to grant them mercy, several said they dreamed of participating in prison programs, getting educated, being less of a financial burden to their families and mentoring younger prisoners. One man said he relies on his family to supplement his $16 monthly prison stipend, which isn’t enough to cover his hygiene needs.
“Things can change for the better, and holding on to that hope is important,” said Taci Jordan Vixen, who along with co-defendent Archie Dixon, is scheduled to be executed in 2027 after being convicted of burying a man alive in 1993.
But a couple of people said that life without parole would be a fate worse than death.
Richard Bays, who was convicted of killing a man during a home robbery while under the influence of crack cocaine, said he would contemplate ending his own life in that situation.
“I don’t want commutation,” said Knuff. “Life in prison is no life I want.”
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James Conway III was convicted of fatally shooting an Ohio State University student and wounding another person outside a club in 2002. He’s had the same nightmare over and over again during his 23 years on death row.
“They come get you, to take you to the execution chamber, and you can’t contact family or legal counsel. Many of us, including myself, suffer panic attacks and other conditions related to the extreme long-term stresses of living under the threat of being executed,” he said.
“It just comes over you, and you go through it until your body can’t take it anymore. Then you sort of pass out and hope things are better when you wake up.”
Decades of waiting to be killed are psychologically torturous, many said.
LaMar is the next person scheduled to be executed in Ohio, with a date set in January. He called the years he has waited since arriving on death row in 1995 “soul-murdering.”
“I noticed almost immediately that most of the men were mentally unstable and should have been in some kind of mental institution,” he said.
While some cling to hope, others say they feel like they are already dead, emotionally and spiritually.
“Just being on the Row will suck the very life out of a person! Year after year of this makes a person want to die! There is no reason to go on!” said George Skatzes, who was convicted of murdering three people, including a corrections officer, during the 1993 prison riot in Lucasville.
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The families of condemned prisoners also suffer under death sentences.
“The tears, the fear and the grief were simply too much for her,” Jalowiec said of his mother. “My family has spent decades living with the uncertainty, stress and emotional burden that comes with a death sentence.”
Conway said his mother talked about killing herself when he was convicted in 2003. Her grandchildren — his kids — grew up without a father present in their lives.
“In my opinion, they should have access to the same resources that are available to victims’ families through the prosecutor’s office,” Conway said. “Regardless of what anyone thinks about me, they are victims of this situation as much as anyone.”
Austin Myers, the youngest person on Ohio’s death row, said he feels forgotten “by nearly all except for those who want you dead.”
“I believe that much of my family mourned the loss of me at the time that I was convicted and sentenced to death, and I never heard from them again,” he said.
One man said his children took their mother’s last name. Some said they have become estranged or watched most of their family members die while they waited to be executed.
They struggle daily with a legacy of pain and suffering that will not die with them.
“The victims are waiting to cheer on our death. Our families are waiting to grieve us,” said Lang.
Additional reporting by Katie Moore, Aala Abdullahi and Shannon Heffernan