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On May 4, 2015, the Supreme Court of Ohio set execution dates in 2018 in the following death penalty cases: State v. Stumpf, State v. Coley, and State v. Fitzpatrick.
Justice Bill O’Neill dissented in all three, as he has done in every order of execution and death penalty appeal affirming a…
Update: This case was sent back for resentencing. Read what happened on remand here.
On December 3, 2014, the Supreme Court of Ohio handed down a merit decision in State v. Herring, 2014-Ohio-5228. In a 4-3 opinion written by Justice Paul Pfeifer, the court granted Herring’s petition for post-conviction relief in this death penalty…
Now retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote this in her separate concurrence in the landmark case of Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, the 2002 decision that changed the landscape in judicial elections by giving judges and judicial candidates more free speech (and some say unwisely so):
“ I am concerned…
The Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty, established by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor in 2011 in her first state of the Judiciary Address as Chief Justice, released its Final Report & Recommendations May 21. The initial charge to the Task Force was “to review the 2007 American Bar Association…
When Justice Bill O’Neill joined the Court January 2, 2013, he wasted no time in making clear his opposition to the death penalty. On January 25, 2013, O’Neill dissented from the order of execution in the case of State v. Wogenstahl, 2013-Ohio-164. He wrote,
“While I recognize that capital punishment is the law of the…
