CLEVELAND — A new study finds that Ohio's Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, saw more death sentences in the past two years than any other U.S. county.
The report from the Death Penalty Information Center says the county had five total death sentences in 2018-2019, compared to two sentences in counties in California and Arizona.
Prosecutor Michael O'Malley says the figure is appropriate given the number of violent offenses since he took office in 2017. The county had imposed just one death sentence in the five years before O’Malley became Cuyahoga County Prosecutor.
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In 2019, fewer than one percent of all U.S. counties imposed death sentences, and only two counties — Cuyahoga (3) and Riverside, California (2) — imposed more than one.
Whether those inmates will ever be executed is another question since executions are on hold in Ohio because of a lack of lethal drugs.
21 states have now abolished the death penalty, with nine having done so since 2004. In March, California Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions on the nation’s largest death row, joining governors in Oregon, Colorado, and Pennsylvania in formally halting executions in their states.
Half of U.S. states have now either abolished the death penalty or halted executions.
