Republican Gov. Mike DeWine says Ohio should abolish the death penalty, saying it is not a deterrent

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday that Ohio should abolish the death penalty, saying it is no longer a deterrent to violent crime, confirming his change of heart on the policy he helped write as a state legislator 45 years ago.

The term-limited governor has repeatedly postponed scheduled executions in the state. He said during a news conference that federal and state data indicates the death penalty does not deter violent crime.

"I no longer believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder," The 79-year-old governor said.

He continued: "I believe Ohio should abolish the death penalty."

Any legislative repeal appears unlikely. Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman said in February he would "vigorously oppose" such an effort, and Yost agreed with him on social media.

DeWine has repeatedly extended Ohio's unofficial death penalty moratorium by postponing scheduled executions, citing pharmaceutical suppliers' unwillingness to provide the drugs used in lethal injections. In January 2025, President Donald Trump ordered then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to help states try to resolve that issue, and former Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost — a capital punishment supporter — told Bondi that "without the assistance of the federal government, Ohio's situation is unlikely to change."

DeWine has already said he expects no further executions during his term, which runs through 2026.

Other states have been rethinking the procedure in recent years. New Hampshire state lawmakers overrode a governor's veto in 2019 to abolish the death penalty in that state. Colorado followed suit in 2020 and Virginia in 2021. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has urged legislators to follow suit, announcing he wouldn't sign any new execution warrants. Gov. Kate Brown commuted sentences of the 17 people on Oregon's death row in 2022 and ordered the execution chamber dismantled.

Pushing back the dates for condemned killers to be put to death has left Ohio with 30 executions scheduled over the next four years, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Ohio hasn't put an inmate to death since July 18, 2018, when Robert Van Hook was executed for stabbing a man he met at a Cincinnati bar in 1985. DeWine assumed the governor's office in 2019.

The state reinstated capital punishment in 1981 under a law co-written by DeWine after it was declared unconstitutional in 1972. But Ohio didn't resume death penalties until 1999. Since then, 56 people have died by lethal injection in the state.

DeWine's support for the death penalty has slowly shifted during his political career, which began in 1976 and saw him rise from county prosecutor to multiple state offices and the U.S. Senate.

Shortly after beginning his first term as governor, DeWine ordered the Ohio prison system to look at alternative lethal injection drugs. A year later, in 2020, he said lawmakers would have to choose a different method of capital punishment before any more inmates could be put to death. Since then, neither a bipartisan push to ban the practice nor a competing effort to bring nitrogen gas executions to Ohio has gone anywhere.

When DeWine called for alternatives, he said he questioned the value of the death penalty. The governor said he was skeptical about whether "it in fact did deter crime, which to me is the moral justification."