Republican governor Mike DeWine, the who co-wrote the bill to reinstate Ohio’s death penalty more than 45 years ago, has called for the state to abolish capital punishment, saying it did not improve public safety and could no longer be morally justified.
“I no longer believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder,” DeWine said on Tuesday. “The moral justification I had for voting for the death penalty simply no longer exists.”
Tuesday’s announcement represents a change of heart for the 79-year-old governor. After Ohio’s reinstated death penalty law was stuck down in 1978, DeWine, then a newly minted state senator, was instrumental in crafting the 1981 law that survived court challenges and remains in effect. But DeWine has softened his stance in recent years, and repeatedly delayed executions throughout his nearly eight-year tenure as Ohio’s governor.
His call for abolition is consistent with the moderate approach to capital punishment that has defined his time as governor, and it puts him at odds with national Republican leaders like Donald Trump, who has sought to expand the death penalty in his second term.