Softening on death penalty?

Is society’s attitude about capital punishment changing? A story by our Columbus Bureau reporter, Laura A. Bischoff, suggests it may be:

“Executions are dwindling in Ohio and across the country as states find it harder to obtain lethal injection drugs. Some are even questioning whether capital punishment is a ‘dead man walking.’ Data from the Death Penalty Information Center show executions peaked at 98 in 1999 but are headed this year to a 27-year low. Meanwhile, death sentences are falling off as well.

“Just 49 defendants were sentenced to death in 2015, down from 295 in 1998. In Ohio, just one death sentence was issued in 2015, according to Ohioans to Stop Executions. Ohio hasn’t executed an inmate since January 2014 when the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction took 26 minutes to kill inmate Dennis McGuire (by using) a previously untested two-drug combination. DRC has since scrapped that lethal injection protocol and the drugs,” she wrote.

Thoughts? Email rrollins@coxohio.com.

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