COLUMBUS, Ohio — Gov. Mike DeWine is considering whether to remove people from Ohio’s death row before he leaves office in January, and the Ohio Parole Board has notified county prosecutors that it will review the cases of at least five condemned inmates in the coming weeks, according to reporting by The Columbus Dispatch.
The board has scheduled clemency hearings in December for Denny Obermiller, Melvin Bonnell, Freddie McNeill and Stanley Jalowiec, according to prosecutors’ offices in Cuyahoga and Lorain counties, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The board will also interview Victoria Drain in mid-December, Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell told The Columbus Dispatch.
The notices arrived months after DeWine called on state lawmakers to end the death penalty, arguing, in The Columbus Dispatch’s account, that the system is slow, expensive and does not deter crime. Ohio has not executed anyone since 2018, the year before DeWine took office, and the state’s execution method has been stalled for years over the availability of lethal-injection drugs.
DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney told The Columbus Dispatch that the governor is approaching the reviews individually. “He is looking at things on a case-by-case basis,” Tierney told The Columbus Dispatch. “This is nothing blanket.” Tierney told The Columbus Dispatch that DeWine routinely considers clemency but acknowledged “there’s a higher volume now” as the governor approaches the end of his final term.
As governor, DeWine can issue pardons or reduce a sentence through commutation, but he cannot make a clemency decision until he receives a recommendation from the Parole Board, The Columbus Dispatch reported. That requirement is why the December hearings matter: each case the board takes up in the coming weeks is a case that could reach the governor’s desk before his term ends in January.
Earlier this year, DeWine commuted the death sentence of Gregory Lott to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a move The Columbus Dispatch noted was reported by the Marshall Project. DeWine has not yet acted on the board’s recommendation in a separate case, that of Tyrone Noling, who maintains his innocence in the 1990 murders of an elderly Portage County couple; the board suggested Noling’s sentence be commuted to life in prison with parole eligibility after Jan. 1, 2029, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Not every case on the board’s list is moving forward. At the same time it scheduled the December hearings, the Parole Board abandoned plans to look at three death penalty cases in Hamilton County, according to records provided by that county’s prosecutor’s office and reported by The Columbus Dispatch.
Prosecutors are raising concerns about the pace. “The commutation process typically takes months and provides prosecutors, the victim’s family and the public ample opportunity to express their concerns,” Lou Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, told The Columbus Dispatch. “Doing this in the short amount of time before he leaves office raises serious questions about whether he is honoring the state’s obligations to the victims of these crimes and to the public,” Tobin told The Columbus Dispatch.
Clemency advocates are pressing in the opposite direction. “Executing an innocent person is not a risk we should be willing to take, and we hope Gov. DeWine is seriously weighing that risk,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said in a statement on Nov. 9, quoted by The Columbus Dispatch. “Clemency is an act of justice,” the organization said in that statement to The Columbus Dispatch. The Columbus Dispatch reported that people on death row have lobbied DeWine for clemency, and that the ACLU of Ohio urged commutations for those who have exhausted their judicial appeals.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What is confirmed, from The Columbus Dispatch’s reporting: the Parole Board will review at least five cases, with December clemency hearings set for Obermiller, Bonnell, McNeill and Jalowiec and a mid-December interview for Drain; three Hamilton County cases will not be reviewed; and the governor’s office says each case will be judged on its own. What is still unknown: how the board will recommend in any of the five cases, whether DeWine will commute any of the sentences, and whether more cases will be added before January. A spokesperson for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction did not immediately respond to a request for information, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
The Columbus Dispatch also noted the national context: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who likewise leaves office in January, recently commuted the sentences of 548 people on death row in that state, according to The Columbus Dispatch. DeWine’s spokesman has stressed that Ohio’s review is explicitly not a blanket action of that kind.
Related coverage from NewsForce247: Ohio’s death penalty under scrutiny after a botched Tennessee execution, Attorney General Yost’s criticism of the execution freeze, and another Ohio inmate’s clemency request to Gov. DeWine.
What happens next is a defined sequence, and it runs on a short clock. The Parole Board holds its December hearings and interviews, sends its recommendations to the governor, and DeWine — who cannot act before those recommendations arrive — decides case by case before he leaves office in January. Victims’ families, prosecutors and the public have their opportunity to be heard during that board process, and the outcome in each of the five named cases will be known before the next administration takes over.
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