Ohio Governor Mike DeWine opposes death penalty, reversing past support

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During a news conference on Tuesday, DeWine explained that, as a young prosecutor and elected official, he once believed that capital punishment could serve as a deterrent to crime. But that argument, he said, no longer stands up to scrutiny. “I do not believe that argument today can be successfully made, nor do I believe that there’s any chance in the future the facts that I’ve cited to support that belief will change,” the 79-year-old DeWine said. “Therefore, I believe Ohio should abolish the death penalty.” The governor’s change of heart comes as he reaches the end of his second and final term. Under Ohio’s term limits, DeWine is ineligible to compete for a third term in November’s midterm elections. His public shift also puts him at odds with the Republican Party establishment in the US. In April, Republican President Donald Trump announced plans to expand the use of the death penalty on the federal level, including through the proposed use of firing squads. A majority of Americans still support the use of the death penalty.  But DeWine’s announcement comes at a time when people in the US are increasingly sceptical of the punishment. The research firm Gallup shows that support for capital punishment reached a high of 80 percent in 1994 but has steadily fallen over the decades to 52 percent in 2025. That trend has been driven by a combination of procedural and moral arguments. Critics point out that Black and Latino defendants are over-represented on death row, suggesting racial bias in sentencing procedures. There are also concerns about wrongful executions. Since 1973, the Death Penalty Information Center, an advocacy group, notes that 202 people on death row were ultimately exonerated. The frequency of botched executions has also raised human rights concerns. Some have argued that the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the US Constitution. DeWine, meanwhile, raised questions about the “certainty and swiftness” of justice being delivered. He argued that it generally takes longer to sentence someone to death, and the odds of the punishment being carried out are low. “In summary, each decade that the death penalty has been in effect, the chances of a murderer getting executed get more and more and more remote,” DeWine said. Ohio’s current death penalty statute took effect in 1981. DeWine, at the time, cosponsored the legislation. But he and other legislators who voted for the statute have since reversed their stance and advocated for its repeal. The belief that capital punishment deters people from committing crimes has also sharply declined in recent decades. While 62 percent of poll respondents in 1985 agreed that the death penalty deters murder, Gallup found that just 32 percent believed the same idea in 2011. The last execution carried out in Ohio took place in 2018, before DeWine took office. As governor, he has overseen a de facto moratorium on the death penalty by postponing scheduled executions. In 2021, he also signed into law a bill barring capital punishment for defendants with serious mental illness. In Tuesday’s speech, he called on the state legislature to consider repealing the 1981 death penalty statute, or put the matter to voters. “The legislature can take this action, and I believe they should take this action,” DeWine said. “But if the legislature does not want to make that decision, they can leave it up to a vote of the people of the state of Ohio.” Ohio’s Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman has already said in February that he would “vigorously oppose” any effort to abolish the death penalty. DeWine acknowledged he has spoken with Huffman, and they remain at odds. “Reasonable people, for centuries, have come down on both sides of this issue,” DeWine said. “There are good people on both sides of this issue.” While 23 states have barred the death penalty, the punishment remains on the books in a majority of states, even though several, including California and Oregon, have effectively paused the practice. Trump, however, has also pledged to increase his administration’s use of capital punishment, reversing a moratorium imposed under former President Joe Biden. Near the end of his first term, Trump oversaw an unprecedented number of federal executions. Thirteen people were executed from July 2020 to January 2021, a period of roughly six months. 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