Reaction is still coming to last week’s problematic and controversial execution, one of the longest ones on record in Ohio. And the troubles that Ohio has had in carrying out executions has led one lawmaker to propose adding to the audience of those witnessing the lethal injection process.
Rep. Bob Hagan is a Democrat of Youngstown who opposes capital punishment, and he says since governors have the authority to commute death sentences to life in prison, he feels they should have to watch what happens when they don’t. So he says he wants to require the governor and the prisons director to be among the witnesses to executions.
“When a governor continues to lead most of the states in executing people and just walks away like it’s out of sight, out of mind, I think sometimes he forgets what his job is.”
Since executions resumed in Ohio in 1999, 10 inmates who had been sentenced to death had their sentences commuted by governors – one by Gov. Bob Taft, five by Gov. Ted Strickland and four by Gov. John Kasich.