Plunderbund

A team of Ohio legal experts working with the American Bar Association issued a report today calling for a temporary halt to executions in Ohio, claiming that “Ohio’s death penalty system is flawed due to inadequate procedures to protect defendants.”

Supposedly, “the ABA neither supports nor opposes the death penalty, but it does urge a moratorium on executions until fairness and due process are assured in death penalty cases.”

According to the press release, Ohio has a lot of problems including:

• Inadequate access to experts and investigators
• Inadequate procedures to protect defendants
• Inadequate legal representation
• Inadequate appellate review of claims of error
• Lack of meaningful proportionality review of death sentences
• Virtually nonexistent discovery provisions in state post-conviction
• Racial and geographic disparities in Ohio’s capital sentencing
• Death sentences imposed or carried out on people with severe mental disabilities