Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins’ first assistant traveled on his behalf to Columbus last week to testify before the House Criminal Justice Committee, which is considering a bill that would repeal the state’s death penalty.

Citing the trend toward giving breaks to convicted felons, Christopher Becker spoke out against the effort to abolish capital punishment in Ohio.

Both houses of the state Legislature are debating the issue.

Senate Bill 103, co-sponsored by Sen. Michael A. Rulli, R-Salem, has been debated in the body’s Judiciary Committee, while House Bill 183 is going through three committees, including the House Criminal Justice Committee, which is giving its third hearing on this repeal effort.

Also speaking last week against the repeal were Louis Tobin, president of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, and Saleh S. Awadallah, of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutors Office.

Gov. Mike DeWine late last year put a moratorium on all state executions for 2021, citing difficulty in getting a drug for lethal injections.

ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT

Becker said the death penalty is not a deterrent but rather is intended to punish the most violent and destructive members of society.

“The death penalty is the ultimate penalty for the ultimate crime and should only be repealed by a vote of the electorate of the state of Ohio,” Becker said.

Watkins successfully prosecuted three Trumbull County men to be executed — Jason Getsy on Aug. 19, 2009, Kenneth Biros on Dec. 8, 2009, and Roderick Davie on Aug. 10, 2010. Becker said as first assistant prosecutor in Trumbull County, he worked on nine capital murder trials with four defendants receiving the death penalty, including the only woman on Ohio’s death row — Donna Roberts. It was Roberts who conspired with Nathaniel Jackson to kill her husband, Robert Fingerhut of Howland.

“I think it is important to note how the Ohio Legislature has consistently over the last 30 years eroded and shrunk the penalties for the worst-of-the-worst offenders,” Becker said.

Prior to a “truth in sentencing” bill passed in 1996, Ohio convicted felons faced penalties of five to 25 years for first-degree offenses, three to 15 years for second-degree offenses and two to 10 years for third-degree felonies. These penalties for the same offenses, Becker pointed out, now have been reduced to three to 11 years for first-degree felonies; two to eight years for second-degree felonies and just nine to 36 months for third-degree offenses.

“This body has also provided other death blows to the … truth in sentencing statute by giving earned credits, 80 percent judicial release and other ways convicted criminals can be released early,” Becker said.

He also pointed to the recently passed Senate Bill 256 that “not only gives convicted child murderers a break by removing the discretion of judges, juries and prosecutors in sentencing juvenile murderers to life in prison without the possibility of parole” but now can allow parole for the worst juvenile murderers around the state.

Instead of kowtowing to the special interests, Becker asked the legislature to seek ways to implement and use the death penalty on the most “heinous of criminals” now sitting on death row.

WHAT PEOPLE WANT

Attempts to contact Rulli have failed in an effort to get his comments about the repeal attempts by the General Assembly.

In his testimony, Tobin said the public doesn’t support repeal of the death penalty and lawmakers should be “highly skeptical” of any polling that suggests they do.

“When pollsters distinguish between most murders and these kinds of aggravated murders that make someone eligible for the death penalty, support for the death penalty is an overwhelming 76 percent,” Tobin said, citing a recent report about death penalty polling from Real Clear Policy.

In two previous hearings, the House Criminal Justice Committee heard from 32 proponents of the death penalty appeal, including Jerry Frewalt of the Catholic Conference of Ohio and Camile Wimbish of the Ohio Fair Courts Alliance.

In testimony given before the committee on Sept. 23, Wimbish said the death penalty is “racially biased, unjust, inhumane, arbitrary and erroneous.” Wimbish cited former Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, who characterized the death penalty as a “death lottery … depending on where you happen to commit the crime and the attitude of the prosecutor.”

This is not justice, Wimbish concluded.

On the Senate side, the proposed death penalty repeal had two hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee. On March 31, the panel heard from the bill’s sponsors — Sens. Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, and Stephen A. Huffman, R-Tipp City. Eight proponents of the repeal testified before the committee on June 16, including Ohio Public Defender Tim Young.

“The death penalty is the most inefficient government program in existence. If any other law was this expensive, this flawed and this ineffective at delivering results, there is no doubt the General Assembly would rescind that law,” Young said. “The death penalty is not about justice; it is about vengeance.”