Death penalty issues not gone

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5:10 PM Wednesday, November 25, 2009

On Sept. 15, Ohio tried — and failed — to execute Romell Broom. The two-hour ordeal made national headlines. It was the third time since 2006 that Ohio, using a protocol the U.S. Supreme Court approved just a few months earlier, had botched an execution.

Broom’s rescheduled execution and some others are now on hold while a federal judge plans a hearing.

Ohio’s response? A new protocol, never tried or tested, was announced earlier this month along with the assurance that this time it will be okay.

Such bravado might be expected of a carnival huckster, but Ohio’s citizens deserve better. The death penalty is plagued with problems — geographic and racial imbalance; high costs; the possibility of an innocent person being executed — so there may be a method to Ohio’s madness. Divert attention from these serious flaws by a wave of the hand, now flashing just one syringe where there used to be three.

It is an old magician’s trick to keep the audience from spotting the truth.

But in this case, we must not be fooled. The death penalty system was riddled with problems and no fancy hand- waving can make them disappear.

Bob Stoughton

Fairborn

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