Opinion: Severely mentally ill will not be executed in Ohio, but work remains

Ohio has taken a major step toward recognizing the role of serious mental health impairments in our criminal justice system.

People with severe mental illness will no longer be executed by the state, thanks to a bill approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine.

I am grateful to those legislators who championed this recommendation of the Ohio Supreme Court’s Joint Task Force into law. During my tenure as a Justice on the Ohio Supreme Court, I long believed that the Ohio General Assembly should exempt people with serious mental illness from the death penalty.