Elwood Jones, who was released from death row in 2023, discusses life before and after prison as he awaits a new trial.
* The application of Ohio’s death penalty varies significantly by county, influenced by the views of elected prosecutors.
* Hamilton and Cuyahoga counties have historically sent the most people to death row.
* A 2014 task force recommended state oversight for capital cases to ensure consistency, but the policy was never implemented.
* Critics argue that political pressure and prosecutors’ personal beliefs lead to disparities in how capital punishment is pursued.
When she took office in January, Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich became the first Democrat in nearly a century to serve as the county’s elected prosecutor.
Pillich is also Catholic. And like many Catholics, she has moral misgivings about the death penalty.
“If it is sought, it will be because I allow it to be sought,” Pillich said in a recent interview.
In May, Pillich was confronted with a case for which the law seemed clear.
Prosecutors say Rodney Hinton Jr. intentionally drove a car into a sheriff’s deputy and killed him because he was distraught after watching video footage of Cincinnati police fatally shooting his son. The deputy, Larry Henderson, was working traffic control for a University of Cincinnati graduation.
Pillich consulted with her legal mentors, a spiritual advisor and her husband, who also is Catholic. To her, the choice was obvious. Ohio specifically allows the death penalty in cases where law enforcement are targeted or killed on duty.
Hinton’s attorneys contend he has a serious mental illness and shouldn’t be executed. Still, Pillich’s decision underscored a belief shared by many prosecutors across Ohio: The death penalty is the law, and they must comply with the law.
But critics argue the death penalty is not always applied evenly by prosecutors. At different times over the past 40 years, Hamilton and Cuyahoga counties dominated Ohio’s capital cases and death sentences.
Murderers in Trumbull County were more likely to end up on death row than those in similarly-sized Clermont and Licking counties.
These disparities are a longstanding criticism for advocates who want to abolish Ohio’s death penalty. The people driving these cases are elected prosecutors, who represent different political parties and change based on the desire of voters in their counties.
That’s why, when Ohio studied the death penalty in 2014, a task force recommended state oversight of prosecutors’ charging decisions. Lawmakers never implemented that policy. Prosecutors say it’s not necessary.
But as state officials wrestle with the death penalty, opponents believe a check on prosecutors could improve the system – if Ohio doesn’t abolish capital punishment altogether.
“There are too many political pressures on prosecutors,” said Don Malarcik, an Akron defense attorney who has handled 20 capital cases. “These are the ‘worst of the worst cases.’ It’s tough because a prosecutor has to be elected … It’s a lot to ask elected officials to handle cases like this without political influences.”
Hamilton, Cuyahoga counties compete for most capital cases
Pillich inherited a complicated legacy.
For years, Hamilton County sent more people to death row than anywhere else in Ohio. A 2020 study from the Columbia Human Rights Law Review found prosecutors tended to pursue capital cases when the crime involved a white victim, and Black defendants who killed a white person were more likely to receive a death sentence.
There are currently 10 people from Hamilton County on death row. Former county prosecutor Joe Deters, a Republican who now sits on the Ohio Supreme Court, put six of them there.
But Deters was far from the only pro-death penalty prosecutor in Ohio.
Capital cases accelerated in Cuyahoga County when Prosecutor Michael O’Malley, a Democrat, took office in 2017. Cuyahoga now has 17 people on death row, surpassing Hamilton for the top slot. O’Malley’s office has filed 34 capital indictments since 2017 – the most of any single county – and five people went to death row.
In Ohio’s largest county, Franklin, prosecutors submitted five capital charges during the same time frame.
“Very, very infrequently should capital punishment be sought,” O’Malley said during a 2024 campaign forum, according to Signal Cleveland. “It should only be the most egregious cases.”
O’Malley declined to be interviewed or answer written questions for this story.
Lou Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys’ Association, said prosecutors have narrowed their scope for death penalty cases and primarily pursue it when a child or multiple people die. More capital cases occur in Ohio’s urban counties because there are more people, more crime and more homicides, he argued.
But opponents believe prosecutors’ personal views – and the ability to afford the extra cost of death penalty cases – also play a role.
“The same law is being applied very differently from one county to the next,” said Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions. “You are striking at the heart of the fundamental fairness of a criminal legal system.”
‘It’s always been politics’
Elwood Jones knows what it’s like to spend years fighting a prosecutor’s office.
Jones, 73, was sentenced to death for the 1994 murder of 67-year-old Rhoda Nathan, who was fatally beaten at a Blue Ash hotel while she was in town for a bar mitzvah. Jones’ conviction hinged on a hand injury and testimony from a now-dead police officer who claimed he found a pendant that belonged to Nathan in Jones’ tool box.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Wende Cross ordered a new trial for Jones in December 2022, saying prosecutors withheld key evidence during his original trial. Jones left death row the following month.
His relationship with the Hamilton County prosecutor’s office is contentious, to say the least. One prosecutor called Jones an “a–hole” during TV and podcast interviews.
“It’s always been politics in this state, and especially this county,” Jones said in an interview. “Most people don’t want to hear it. The prosecutors consider me as being arrogant, but y’all are the ones who break the rules every day. Y’all put innocent people in jail, and then you don’t want to admit what you’ve done.”
Before Pillich took office, prosecutors tried to challenge Cross’ ruling and were blocked by an appeals court. The matter is now before the Ohio Supreme Court. In court filings, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Philip Cummings said the appellate court “abused its discretion” by denying Hamilton County’s efforts to appeal.
But attorneys for Jones accused prosecutors of working to undermine the authority of appeals courts for their own gain.
“They are very much using Elwood’s case, it seems, for procedural purposes that have nothing to do with Elwood Jones,” said David Hine, one of the attorneys defending Jones.
In a statement, Pillich said the Ohio Supreme Court accepts cases “that are important for all Ohioans.”
“This case is about Mr. Jones, but the question and answer from the Ohio Supreme Court is for all Ohioans,” she said. “The Supreme Court wouldn’t have taken this if it wasn’t.”
Should Ohio prosecutors have more oversight?
When Ohio officials debated the fairness of the death penalty in 2014, prosecutors were a key part of the equation.
One of the task force’s 56 recommendations was to create a charging committee within the attorney general’s office to vet death cases. The committee would review potential capital indictments and either accept or reject the charges, with a focus on the race of the defendants and victims.
The idea mirrors a similar process at the federal level. If a U.S. attorney or assistant attorney general wants to pursue the death penalty, the Capital Review Committee examines the case and makes a recommendation based on information from prosecutors and defense counsel. The final decision rests with the U.S. attorney general.
A charging committee never got off the ground in Ohio. Deters coauthored a report dissenting against the task force’s recommendations and said there are no racial discrepancies in how prosecutors pursue capital cases. Opponents of the change argued it would also delay an already cumbersome legal process.
More than half of the people on Ohio’s death row are Black, even though Black people make up 12% of the state’s population, according to 2020 U.S. Census data.
“They didn’t want to cede any of their control over whether they pursued a case as capital,” said Margery Koosed, a professor emeritus at the University of Akron who assisted with the death penalty task force.
Tobin, of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys’ Association, believes punting charging decisions to an “unelected, bureaucratic body” would reduce accountability. Tobin said the state could instead provide funding for death penalty cases – making them more affordable for rural counties – or require prosecutors to pursue the death penalty in certain circumstances.
“That means more death penalty, and death penalty opponents are going to oppose that, too,” Tobin said.
As local officials, prosecutors say they must make decisions on behalf of their communities.
Take Dennis Watkins, the Trumbull County prosecutor and longest-serving prosecutor in Ohio. He’s been a staunch supporter of the death penalty from day one, as illustrated by the toy electric chairs on his desk. Trumbull County has half the population of Lucas County but the same number of people on death row.
Voters repeatedly reelected Watkins since 1984 knowing his position. It’s a sign, to him, that he’s doing the job his constituents expect.
“It’s a very serious matter,” Watkins said. “It’s a standard of life, of respect of humanity, to make sure the worst of the worst can’t get away with it.”
Haley BeMiller, Kevin Grasha and Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].
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