The Death Penalty Information Center released a new report about Ohio’s death penalty. The report – Broken Promises: How a History of Racial Violence and Bias Shaped Ohio’s Death Penalty – traces the racist roots of our state’s capital punishment system.
The Death Penalty Information Center’s new report shows that Ohio’s death penalty has always been skewed to favor whiteness, at every step in the process. It underscores that every day that we continue to have the death penalty in Ohio, we will perpetuate our state’s horrific legacy of racial terror. The General Assembly has been so distracted by its own drama, it has neglected the hard work of taking up this issue. Let this report urge them to consider this one. The death penalty must be relegated to where it belongs – the history books – along with the other racist laws and practices detailed in this report.
Allison Cohen – Executive Director of Ohioans to Stop Executions and OTSE Action Fund
This eye-opening report serves as a sobering reminder of our state’s dark past, and its lingering impact on the present era. We must reignite the long-simmering conversation around capital punishment in the Statehouse and take concrete steps to identify and eliminate racial bias in our courtrooms once and for all. Our past can be our teacher, but it does not have to be our gruesome, unjust future.
John S. Meacham Jr. – Executive Director, Ohio Legislative Black Caucus
