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Harm to Law Enforcement

The moral debate surrounding the death penalty is visible. However, most do not think about the moral issue of appointing human beings to end the lives of death row inmates. Assisting in executions is a violation of the AMA code of ethics, so the burden is generally placed on inexperienced and anonymous prison medical employees.

Psychological Harm

The death penalty takes a heavy toll on those directly involved in executions— prison wardens, chaplains, executioners, and corrections officers. Many of those involved in executions have reported suffering PTSD-like symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares and other forms of distress. These symptoms are reported by multiple witnesses such as journalists, executioners, and wardens alike. The Catholic chaplain on Ohio’s death row wrote about witnessing an execution, calling the experience “ghastly.” (Read the full article here).

A 2005 study published in Law and Human Behavior titled “The Role of Moral Disengagement in the Execution Process” aimed to understand the psychological strategies officers use to perform and cope with executions. The 5 year study was conducted by then-Stanford psychology student Michael Osofsky, social cognitive theory pioneer Albert Bandura, and Stanford prison experimenter/psychologist Philip Zimbardo.

“The core thesis is that individuals must morally disengage in order to perform actions and behaviors that run opposite and are counter to individual values and personal moral standards,” Osofsky says.

“Capital punishment is a real-world example of this type of moral dilemma where everyday people are forced to perform a legal and state-sanctioned action of ending the life of another human being, which poses an inherent moral conflict to human values.”

During his interviews with execution teams and uninvolved correctional officers, Osofsky used the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS-1) Life Events Checklist and the Beck Depression Inventory, two tools psychologists use to measure trauma and depression. Nearly all corrections officers, whether involved or uninvolved with the execution process, rated high on the CAPS-1 Life Event Checklist, indicating they have witnessed traumatizing events.

The Proof is in the Polling

Polling indicates that law enforcement officials would much rather have resources spent on other, more helpful tools, than on capital punishment. Law enforcement also believe they would be able to perform better without the dysfunction of the death penalty.

And in this 2009 study, the nation’s police chiefs rank the death penalty last in their priorities for effective crime reduction. The officers do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder, and they rate it as one of most inefficient uses of taxpayer dollars in fighting crime.

Other Significant Findings

  • The murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty
  • Argued that criminals do not premeditate the possibility of the death penalty before committing a crime
  • According to a survey of the former and present presidents of the country’s top academic criminological societies, 88% of these experts rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder.
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RECOMMENDATION 52

Adoption of a rule directing that the trial judge is the appropriate authority for the appointment of experts for indigent defendants. The rule should further provide that the decision pertaining to the appointment of experts shall be made, on the record, at one of the prescribed Pre-Trial Conferences.

If defense counsel requests, the demand for appointment of the expert shall be made in-camera ex parte, and the order concerning the appointment shall be under seal.

Upon establishing counsels’ respective compliance with discovery obligations, the question of the appointment of experts (including determination of projected expert fees based upon analysis of expert’s time to be applied to the case as well as consideration of incremental payment of expert fees as case progresses) would be decided by the court, which decision would be subject to immediate appeal, under seal, to the appropriate Court of Appeals. The trial court judge shall make written findings as to the basis for any denial. Although concerns have been raised as to the ability of the Appellate Court to provide the anticipated, necessary expedited hearing within a reasonable time-frame, the Joint Task Force suggests that this issue be elevated to the status of a final appealable order and that the necessary expedited appellate process be spelled out in the statute.

RECOMMENDATION 54

Should the present process of appointment of indigent counsel by the judiciary continue, the main objective should always be to assure the best educationally experienced and qualified candidate, who is available (within the county or outside the county), and who is otherwise willing to take on the responsibilities associated with the case for an appropriate fee and accompanying expenses, is appointed. A uniform fee schedule for such services across the State of Ohio must be a necessary consideration to assure the equal protection and due process for the accused in a capital case.

RECOMMENDATION 55

Adoption of reporting standards to provide complete transparency of record, including requirements to ensure better record keeping by the trial judge and the provision of additional, detailed resource information necessary to assure strict compliance with due process, which information shall be submitted to the Supreme Court upon completion of the case. Such resource information may include unique Constitutional issues, unique evidentiary issues, significant motions, plea rationale, pre-sentence investigation, and any additional information required by the Rule 20 Committee or the Supreme Court of Ohio. Additional types of resource information could be developed as part of the mandated educational process conducted by the Ohio Judicial College.

RECOMMENDATION 56

The Joint Task Force believes that some of the recommendations above could be accomplished by the adoption of a separate Criminal Rule for Capital Cases. The Joint Task Force recommends that such a rule be adopted and provide for the mandatory training of attorneys and judges (Recommendation 49), the selection and appointment of indigent counsel in capital cases (Recommendation 51), and the enforcement of the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases and the Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams (Recommendations 11 and 12).