STUDIES: Ohio Prosecutors Increasingly Seeking Life Without Parole Instead of Death Penalty

According to a new study by the Associated Press, there has been a sharp drop in the use of the death penalty in Ohio as prosecutors are taking advantage of a new law allowing them to seek a sentence of life without parole without first pursuing the death penalty. The sentence of life without parole used to be only an option for jurors weighing an alternative to a death sentence. According to the AP, “Prosecutors around Ohio, citing the ability to pursue harsh punishment without going through the complication and expense of a death penalty case are starting to take advantage of the 2005 law,” and the “number of death penalty indictments sought statewide dropped 32 percent from 2004 to 2007 . . . .[T]he number of life without parole sentences rose by more than two-thirds in the three years since the law took effect compared with the three years before, when 45 inmates entered prison with the permanent life sentence."

Clermont County Prosecutor Don White explained, “Life without parole means it’s over. The only way they’ll get out is in a pine box or if the governor lets them out.” The Associated Press's study noted, “A death penalty trial can easily top $100,00 for a county as extra staff, investigators and psychological experts are hired by the defense and prosecutors…[and] can drain the annual budgets of smaller counties.” In Franklin County, there were 34 death penalty cases in 2004--highest in the state that year. The number of death penalty cases in the county dropped to five in 2006 and three last year.

North Carolina has also recently given prosecutors the option of separately seeking life without parole, and death sentences there have dropped from 14 in 2001 to 3 in 2007. Wake County, North Carolina prosecutor Colon Willoughby explained, “Under the old law, I think prosecutors were sometimes forced to try cases capitally in order to be able to get a life sentence, knowing that there was very little chance a jury would render a sentence of death.” He added that the new option allows for quick justice that saves money and still protects citizens. Texas, the state that leads the country in executions, only recently put the sentence of life without parole on its books. But it only permits this sentence as an option in cases where the prosecutor seeks the death penalty. The change in Ohio law was inspired by a murder victim’s mother’s advocacy for stiffer non-death sentence options.
(A. Welsh-Huggins, “Ohio prosecutors using new life without parole option,” Akron Beacon-Journal, June 22, 2008). See Costs and Life Without Parole.