You may have heard through the proverbial grapevine that a group of legislators is taking an unusual (not to mention unconstitutional!) approach to death penalty repeal legislation this General Assembly.
These lawmakers recently introduced a bill, House Bill (HB) 72, that manipulatively combines death penalty repeal with provisions that undermine the Reproductive Freedom Amendment and access to medical aid in dying (also known as physician-assisted suicide). This bill, with strong backing from the Ohio Catholic Conference, distracts from the critical debate about the numerous problems with our broken capital punishment system.
HB 72 Was Designed to Deceive the Public
HB 72 creates a new definition of “lethal injection drug,” defined as “any drug or combination of drugs used to quickly and painlessly cause death.” As a result, this definition:
- Prohibits using “lethal injection drugs” for abortion or medical aid in dying.
- Adds to current law prohibiting the use of state and local funding for abortion services.
- Adds to another provision of current law declaring that assisting suicide is “against the public policy of the state.”
- Creates a new prohibition on using lethal injection drugs for executions.
HB 72 Violates the Ohio Constitution
Other language in the bill attempts to clarify that the bill does not conflict with or change current law, the Ohio Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, or decisions by federal courts.
However, that language falls flat for several reasons:
- The bill language specifically conflicts with the Reproductive Freedom Amendment of the Ohio Constitution, approved by voters in November 2023.
- A legislator cannot claim that they do not intend for their bill to conflict with the Ohio Constitution when the bill does conflict with it.
- The Ohio and U.S. Constitutions always take precedence over statutes—the fancy word for laws passed by the legislature—so this language is redundant.
The bottom line is this: the ACLU of Ohio has supported repealing our state’s death penalty since its return in 1981. However, we are fundamentally opposed to this “bait and switch” effort to attach two unrelated, overtly “pro-life” objectives to the policy of repealing the death penalty.
Denying funding for abortion medication is in direct violation of the Reproductive Freedom Amendment. Moreover, supporting medical aid in dying is a longstanding ACLU principle. This bill would take Ohio in the wrong direction on both fronts.
We will continue to urge the Ohio General Assembly to move forward with a “clean” bill that focuses solely on repealing the death penalty, as bipartisan groups of legislators have done in previous years. It remains clear that the majority of Ohioans now support repealing the death penalty and replacing it with a life sentence for murder without the possibility of parole.
Legislators must listen to Ohio voters instead of pushing HB 72, the Death Penalty Repeal Deception Act.
