Beacon Journal editorial board: Are they 'most deserving of execution'?

Ohio plans to execute Gary Otte next week. He will be the 2nd man put to death since the state resumed lethal injections after a hiatus of more than 3 years. In 1992, Otte killed 2 people during armed robberies on consecutive days in Parma. The parole board denied his bid for clemency earlier this year, explaining: "The totality of his upbringing ... suggests ... Otte consciously rejected the law-abiding, pro-social paths available to him."

And yet the story is more complicated, as a study released last week by the Fair Punishment Project at the Harvard Law School shows. Otte suffered from chronic depression, began abusing drugs and alcohol at age 10, first attempted suicide at 15. He committed the murders at 20, or nearly as a juvenile. Research shows the brain still developing at that point. Which is part of why the Supreme Court has barred executing juveniles.

The idea isn't to diminish in any way the horrible crimes of Otte. The reasonable question raised by the study is whether he should be executed. The report reminds that the high court restricts the death penalty to those "whose extreme culpability makes them 'the most deserving of execution.'"

The study looks at the backgrounds of the next 26 men scheduled for execution in Ohio, the dates now going into 2022. It finds the men "among the most impaired and traumatized among us."

At least 17 faced severe childhood trauma. 6 appear afflicted with mental illness, with 11 showing evidence of "intellectual disability, borderline intellectual disability, or a cognitive impairment." 3 committed their crimes before reaching age 21.

Consider Archie Dixon, who was 20 when he and an accomplice robbed, kidnapped and buried alive a man, leaving him to die. The crime was ghastly. So was the upbringing Dixon faced, neglect, physical violence and sexual abuse, the evidence suggesting incest. A caseworker cited the Dixon family as one of the worst he ever had experienced.

The study notes that Dixon's attorneys failed to present this mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of the trial.

David Sneed robbed and killed a man in Canton. At the time, he suffered from a severe manic bipolar disorder and a "schizo-affective disorder involving hallucinations and delusions." A psychiatrist described him as "psychotic" and "assaultive." Sneed suffers from cognitive troubles and repeated episodes of physical and sexual abuse.

Legislation proposed at the Statehouse rightly would exempt from the death penalty those diagnosed with such mental illnesses at the time of the offense.

The study catalogues the many horrors and "devastating impairments." Again, the purpose isn't to somehow explain away the crimes. The men should be held accountable and serve prison sentences such as life without parole.

Do they qualify as the worst of the worst in view of the trauma, illness and cognitive complications? The report asks Ohioans to think about that question and what it says about them that the state will put these men to death.

Source: Akron Beacon Journal, Editorial Board, Sept. 5, 2017

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

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