Columbus, Ohio (WOWO) — Ohio continues to spend taxpayer money on death penalty cases despite going eight years without carrying out an execution, with studies from other states indicating that capital cases can cost between one million and three million dollars more per case than prosecutions see king life imprisonment. The financial burden remains even as executions are effectively on hold, leaving state officials, prosecutors and lawmakers divided over whether to change Ohio’s execution methods, abolish capital punishment or find a way to resume carrying out existing death sentences. Ohio’s last execution took place in 2018. Since taking office in January 2019, Governor Mike DeWine has repeatedly postponed scheduled executions, citing difficulties obtaining lethal-injection drugs from pharmaceutical companies. The death penalty remains legal, however, and prosecutors continue to seek death sentences in qualifying murder cases according to WCMH. David Fornshell, president of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association and prosecutor in Warren County, said the ongoing pause has not changed how prosecutors approach cases that could warrant capital punishment. “The fact that the governor and the legislature can’t seem to muster the political will to obtain what is needed, whether it’s drugs or whether it’s a different methodology altogether, that hasn’t stopped Ohio prosecutors from enforcing the law,” Fornshell said. Fornshell said the state’s inability to carry out executions should not prevent prosecutors from pursuing the penalties authorized under Ohio law. The financial consequences of capital cases can begin well before a defendant is convicted and continue for decades afterward. According to the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, research from other states has found that death penalty cases cost approximately $1 million to $3 million more than cases in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment. Those cases can be two-and-a-half to five times as expensive. Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said several features of capital prosecutions contribute to the higher costs. Ohio requires defendants facing the death penalty to have an additional defense attorney, typically a publicly funded lawyer. Capital trials also involve two separate phases: one to determine guilt and another to decide whether the defendant should receive a death sentence. That second phase requires additional proceedings focused specifically on punishment, adding to the demands on courts, prosecutors and defense teams. “The taxpayers are usually on the hook for all of this,” Berman said. “They’re paying for the courthouse, they’re paying for the judge, they’re paying for the prosecutors.” Berman said some particularly complex cases involve multiple prosecutors and defense attorneys, increasing the cost of preparing and conducting the trial. The expenses do not end when a jury returns a guilty verdict or a judge imposes a death sentence. Death row inmates generally pursue extensive appeals, creating additional legal costs for the state over many years. In Ohio, an inmate sentenced to death spends nearly 23 years on death row before an execution date is set, according to the report cited by NBC4. The most recent Ohio attorney general’s capital crimes report largely attributes the lengthy process to appeals. The state’s history also illustrates how rarely death sentences ultimately result in executions. From 1981 through December 2025, 337 people received death sentences in Ohio. Of those, 56 were executed, while 41 death row inmates died of natural causes or suicide, according to the report. Berman said many people sentenced to death ultimately spend their lives in prison without being executed, despite the additional expenses associated with capital prosecutions and appeals. “Especially in Ohio, we’ve never gotten anywhere close to executing all the people we send to death row,” Berman said. “Functionally, most of the people who end up on death row end up serving life sentences anyway, and yet we’ve also spent all this money fighting over whether they should be on death row.” He cautioned against attempts to speed up executions by reducing procedural safeguards, arguing that efforts to cut corners have contributed to cases in which innocent people were sentenced to death. Supporters of capital punishment, meanwhile, challenge the way some studies calculate the costs. Berman said proponents argue that the possibility of a death sentence can encourage defendants to accept plea agreements, potentially avoiding a lengthy trial and subsequent appeals. He acknowledged that determining the full financial impact is difficult because the costs depend on individual cases, court proceedings and the legal outcomes being compared. “Not surprisingly, it generally is groups who are opposed to the death penalty that are eager to make the claim that this is an expensive proposition,” Berman said. “It’s an awfully hard equation to do in a rigorous and comprehensive way.” No studies have been released examining the specific financial impact in Ohio of continuing to prosecute capital cases and house death row inmates while executions remain suspended. Since the pause began, Ohio has added eight people to death row: six in 2019, one in 2020 and one in 2024, according to the capital crimes report. Berman said the available information does not establish that the last eight years of postponed executions have necessarily produced a dramatic additional expense beyond the costs already associated with Ohio’s lengthy capital punishment process. “We don’t have a history here in Ohio of being able to move cases, you might say, to the end of the line, to an execution fast enough, to reach the conclusion that these last eight years have been a dramatic extra cost,” he said. The debate has prompted competing legislative proposals at the Statehouse. One bill would eliminate the death penalty in Ohio altogether. Another would authorize executions using nitrogen gas inhalation, a method supporters have proposed as an alternative amid continuing difficulties obtaining lethal-injection drugs. Lethal injection remains Ohio’s only authorized execution method. Fornshell said the issue should be addressed by state lawmakers and the governor rather than allowing the current situation to continue indefinitely. “This isn’t a partisan issue for prosecutors, and it’s not a partisan issue for those jurors who ultimately end up on juries where they’re considering the death penalty,” Fornshell said. “They look at the facts and enforce the law, and now we just need our governor and our legislature to do the same.” Beyond the budget debate, Berman said the consequences of capital punishment extend to victims’ families, who can spend years waiting for an execution that repeatedly gets postponed. He also pointed to the risk of executing an innocent person as a central concern in evaluating the system. “I especially don’t want to suggest that whatever your policy position on the death penalty, you shouldn’t consider the economics of them,” he said. “But I do mean to highlight that none of these studies have suggested that there’s a clear path towards savings.” Fornshell argued that the continued postponements can inflict additional suffering on families seeking finality after a murder conviction. “The state of Ohio is unnecessarily causing additional trauma onto these victims by continuing what should be a final resolution of the case where their family member was murdered,” he said. Ohio currently has 106 people on death row, according to the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. The state’s total prison population stood at 45,704 in early January, providing a broader picture of the corrections system in which those inmates are held. For now, Ohio remains caught between a death penalty that prosecutors continue to pursue and an execution system that has not carried out a sentence since 2018. Lawmakers face competing proposals over whether to end capital punishment or authorize a different execution method, while the costs of capital trials, appeals and long-term incarceration continue to factor into the debate. The post Ohio Hasn’t Executed Anyone Since 2018, but Death Penalty Cases Continue to Cost Millions appeared first on WOWO News/Talk 92.3 FM and 1190 AM. ...read more read less