Feb. 20: Ohio Halts Murder Business (For Now)
Feb. 20: Ohio Halts Murder Business (For Now)
Gas tax hike coming, Republican chairwoman blows a dog whistle, and more.
Today’s letter is already starting off better than yesterday’s because I didn’t hit “SEND” at 10 p.m. on a piece that hadn’t been fully edited. And what better topic to kick off a Wednesday work day than the death penalty?
Mainstream pharmaceutical companies are no longer cool with supplying death cocktails to states for executions, so Ohio sourced drugs from dodgy overseas companies.
Here’s how one botched attempt went in 2014, via theintercept.com:
Perhaps most famously, in 2014 the state executed Dennis McGuire using the unprecedented combination of midazolam — the now controversial sedative — and the pain medication hydromorphone. State officials were warned in advance that the untested drugs put McGuire at risk of a suffocating death. Horrified witnesses watched as the 253-pound McGuire “repeated cycles of snorting, gurgling, and arching his back” and appeared to “writhe in pain,” according to a lawsuit filed by his family.
Ohio hasn’t found a concoction that doesn’t violate the Constitution’s ban against cruel and unusual punishment. Yesterday, Governor Mike DeWine said he won’t murder a prisoner until they do.
From Laura Bischoff of daytondailynews.com:
COLUMBUS — Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday that he is halting executions until the state devises a new lethal injection protocol that overcomes any court challenges.
He did not issue a formal stay of all executions but said “Ohio is not going to execute someone under my watch when a federal judge has found it to be cruel and unusual punishment.”
…
“We certainly could have no executions during that period of time. I don’t want to predict dates, but we have to have the protocol, then it will be challenged, then we have a judge make a decision. So we have to through all that process before we could certainly move down the path toward an execution,” he said.
The next scheduled execution is May 29. DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said the governor will decide whether to go ahead or delay that execution based on the facts at the time, including whether the federal judge’s ruling has been overturned.
DeWine, who never spares a chance to brag about how pro-life he is, refused to express his personal views on the death penalty, which leads me to believe he’s against it and unwilling to say so publicly because Republican voters have been conditioned to revile “soft-on-crime” politicians.
DeWine actually voted for capital punishment as a state senator nearly 40 years ago. Then DNA analysis came along and proved what anti-death penalty advocates have long known: When the state engages in sanctioned murder, it will inevitably execute an innocent person at some point.
This isn’t how I wanted to see Ohio get out of the murder business, but I’m thankful for the reprieve.
Thanks to mismanagement under John Kasich that didn’t come to light until he left office, the Ohio Department of Transportation says it needs at least a $1 billion infusion to maintain state roads at their current level of potholed shittiness.
DeWine, who campaigned on not raising our taxes, will undoubtedly have to break that promise in the near future. The Buckeye Institute, a think-tank of Libertarian Reddit posters, wants legislatures to reduce the income tax to offset the hike because increasing a regressive tax and decreasing a progressive tax is how we love to do business. It’s not socialism if it benefits rich people.
One cool thing about America is we call ourselves “The Land of the Free” while imprisoning more people per capita than Russia or China. Ohio is one of the most incarcerated states in the country due to our love for “tough-on-crime” politicians whose answer to every criminal justice problem is longer prison sentences.
Those policies led to dangerous overcrowding.
From Jo Ingles of wosu.org:
The ACLU’s Gary Daniels says the report shows too many Ohioans are being locked up.
“Our prison system is about 11,000 to 12,000 people above capacity right now," Daniels says.
Daniels says lawmakers have loosened penalties to divert some low-level offenders from lockups, but are still passing new tough on crime legislation.
“So our number one recommendation which revolves around the report is stop passing these bills to put more people in prison and jail," Daniels says.
Surprisingly, Republican Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has some good ideas on how to decrease the embarrassing numbers of incarcerated Ohioans.
From Darrel Rowland of dispatch.com:
Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor is seeking support to expand Ohio’s drug courts and also wants to judges to more liberally grant deserving drug offenders, and others, treatment and rehabilitation programs instead of prison cells.
Judges should be required to justify their decisions if they decide to send certain offenders to prison or jail rather than granting other interventions, she said.
O’Connor also wants to make it easier and quicker for low-level offenders to seal their conviction records to make it less onerous to obtain and keep jobs. The current set up requires people to wait three years without any additional convictions to apply to seal their convictions. They also must not have racked up more than one low-level felony and one misdemeanor conviction. She wants to allow sealing of court records after one year and permit those with up to two low-level felonies and four misdemeanor convictions to apply.
She also wants to reform Ohio’s bail system, which she said serves to keep the indigent imprisoned because they cannot afford to post even low cash bond amounts to be freed prior to the resolution of their court cases.
Legislative leaders have paid lip service to criminal justice reform. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Jane Timken, on the day Bernie Sanders announced his bid to become the first Jewish president, chose to blow an anti-Semitic dog whistle and got no pushback at a forum ostensibly attended by journalists.
Timken isn’t a black Muslim immigrant who wears a hijab, so she won’t receive any of the criticism leveled at freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. I wish somebody would have simply asked what she meant by “East Coast values,” because two years ago Ohio elected a New York City “billionaire” who lives in a golden apartment. In her defense, however, President KFC Bucket has never been accused of having values.
I don’t always venture out of the great state of Ohio for news, but when I do, you can bet your ass somebody got arrested in comical fashion.
From Natalie Neysa Alund via cincinnati.com:
NASHVILLE — Metro police on Monday arrested a Bellevue, Tennessee, man on public intoxication charges after he tipped servers $22,000 at a downtown hotel bar.
It all started when friends of Joel Boyers called police after they said they received strange texts from him about taking drugs that "increased his intelligence" and drinking while carrying a gun.
"He also made bizarre statements about giving away his child on Facebook," according to his arrest affidavit.
Police said when officers found Boyers at the JW Marriott hotel on Eighth Avenue South in Nashville, he admitted to drinking all day and smoking marijuana while carrying his firearm.
Hotel staff told police he'd also caused a disruption at the bar because he made several high-dollar tips — amounting to $22,000 — and waitresses were competing to serve him, something hotel management said interfered with the operation of the bar.
Any friend who called the police to tattle on my bizarre drunken statements would no longer be my friend.
I also love how this guy is painted as a disturbing force when he was simply drinking by himself at a hotel bar and generously tipping the waitstaff. And please, show me one parent who hasn’t thought about giving away their kid at least once in their life, and I’ll show you a bad liar.
Pro-tip, though: It’s best to invoke your Fifth Amendment right to remain silent when speaking to police. Confessing to all your crimes never ends well. Don’t become a statistic who appears in a viral arrest story.
THOSE WMDs. Emojis are showing up in court cases, and courts aren’t prepared… YouTube monetizes the sexualization of children… Instagram influences sell drugs and medical devices… How disgraced ref Tim Donaghy conspired to fix NBA games.