DeWine says he will make an announcement on the death penalty in January

Gov. Mike DeWine said on Thursday that he would make the official announcement regarding his definitive position on the death penalty in January 2026.

“I’m going to spend a little time at Christmas writing my statement,” DeWine, a Republican, said, according to Cleveland.com. “We’ll be talking to you in January.”

The Republican-dominated Ohio General Assembly would be needed to abolish the death penalty in the state. It is unclear whether it would happen because many Republicans in Ohio support capital punishment.

Ohio.News previously reported that DeWine hinted that he could repeal the death penalty. DeWine previously avoided making a definitive statement, but many people assumed he opposed it because every execution has been postponed since he was elected in 2019.

Chris Quinn of Cleveland.com also said that if DeWine announces he is against the death penalty, no one will be surprised.

“It is very much in keeping with his personal beliefs,” Chris Quinn of Cleveland.com said, adding that nobody would be surprised if DeWine announces he is against the death penalty. “The same reason he opposes abortion is that he believes it’s the taking of a life.”

Aside from the pro-life reasoning, DeWine may also oppose the death penalty because it would be difficult to obtain lethal injection drugs from pharmaceutical companies that don’t want their products used for executions. Each execution is also costly, which could be another reason why DeWine opposes the procedure.

Ohio has been divided on the issue of the death penalty, with some people supporting it and others opposing it.

During his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in support of House Bill 36, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost claimed that Ohio is avoiding the responsibility of executing prisoners who are sentenced to death, telling the lawmakers that the victims of these people should be the top priority.

Yost also proposed an “additional method of execution,” nitrogen hypoxia, that would use a mask to force a lethal amount of nitrogen gas into a person’s system. It causes them to pass out before they asphyxiate.

There were also people opposing the death penalty, including former state lawmakers who reinstated the death penalty in Ohio in 1981. Thirty-nine of those lawmakers said that they want the death penalty repealed.

Senate Democratic Leader Nickie J. Antonio, D-Lakewood, and state Senator Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, also announced back in January that they would reintroduce legislation to eliminate the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life without parole for capital crimes.

“It is time for the state of Ohio to take the pragmatic and economically prudent step to abolish the death penalty,” Antonio said. “Capital punishment is impractical, unjust, inhumane and erroneous. We stand together – progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans – seeking an end to executions in Ohio. The time to improve our flawed justice system is now.”