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Good afternoon, I'm Dana Rose with 19 News Now coming to you from our digital studio here at 19 News because we're about to take you to a news conference where really some several high-powered prosecutors including a representative from the attorney general's office are about to hold a news conference to speak out against House Bill 130 - six just a proposal at this point Here's a look at House Bill 130 - six being sponsored by Brett Hudson Hilliard 130 - six and if you look there on your screen If mentally ill at the time of offense and in fact, if you look just a little bit lower under the long title this will give you a little bit better idea to prohibit Imposing death penalty for aggravated murder when the offender had a serious mental illness at the time of offense Now that is going to be debated What is considered a serious mental illness And that's why you have this group this room full of some of the most power Prosecutors in the state of Ohio Now speaking out against the House Bill 130 - six. Let's listen in General David Yost Carol O 'Brien is here today. Ohio Prosecuting Attorney's Association is a bipartisan group of prosecutors in the state and is joined by all 80 - eight prosecutors all 80 -, eight elected prosecutors and their assistance. the prosecutors here today come from every corner of our state and we're here to discuss what we feel is dangerous legislation that our general Assembly Concerning the death penalty in Ohio This is not about politics obviously the OPA has prosecutors from both parties and we all join in the position that we stay today We are interested in protecting the people of Ohio This is about to protection of our communities and Justice for the victims of the most heinous crimes that are committed in our state It's about the defacto abolition of the death penalty by this legislation The legislation I'm talking about is House Bill 130 -, six and Senate Bill 50, - Four. We are currently moving through the General Assembly under the guys of excluding certain individuals who have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness These bills in our opinion are not necessary to address any actual problem We are experiencing with the death penalty We are not executing the mentally ill people who are mentally ill who Cannot appreciate the wrongful mess of their conduct Cannot be executed in Ohio That's the current law This legislation protects from the death penalty those who do appreciate the wrongfully of their conduct The bills are poorly written they abdicate legislative responsibility to a group over which the General Assembly has no oversight The American Psychiatric Association the bills are fiscally irresponsible They are dangerous for Ohioans These bills are moving through the Legislature despite concerns that have been raised by prosecutors across Ohio The concerns that we have expressed have to date been ignored and in the face of change that we have requested they have maintained their positions For instance these bills out everyone currently on death row to seek to be taken off death row even though they were convicted by a jury and sentenced to death many of them decades ago This legislation allows someone who's mental illness was in remission who understood that it was wrong to murder who decided to murder anyway to avoid the death penalty The legislation allows the American Psychiatric Association a group that does not favor the death penalty under any circumstances in a group over whom the General Assembly has no oversight to set the parameters of who can be executed Despite this some influential people in the State House people who have never tried a murder case let alone the death penalty case People who have not been involved in any criminal case Disagree with the people who have tried these cases that is the prosecutors we who have sat across the table from Hamas murderers from serial killers from baby killers from cop killers and we've had to work with the families of these victims to secure Justice for them The people driving the legislation do not have any idea what death penalty trials entail what the appeals entail or what the impact on the victims and the communities is like and yet they disagree with us when we tell them that these bills will tie the death penalty up in knots that the bills will lead to years and years of new appeals at great financial cost and a great cost to public safety and that the impact The victims past and present will be tremendous and traumatic The people who enforced the death penalty cases in Ohio that is Ohio. Prosecutors agree that these bills functionally repeal the death penalty whether you are for or against the death penalty The lack of transparency from our elected officials should be concerning the unwillingness to act on the concerns of those of us elected to keep our community safe should be of concern the unwillingness to take advice from those of us Relevant experience in death penalty cases should be of concern the support for these bills by groups that are admittedly anti-death penalty under any circumstances should be of concern If the Legislature wants to repeal the death penalty it should do so in a transparent way and not under the fallacy that we are executing the mentally ill Do support the death penalty We feel that it makes our community safer That is it is an appropriate punishment for the worst of the worst crimes and criminals Our priority is protecting public safety and the securing of Justice for the innocent while in at least some circles of the Legislature the priority seems to be the offender and the impact of the crime crime has on the offenders life We stand ready to have a debate about the death penalty in an open and honest way We would hope that our fellow elected officials in the General Assembly would encourage the same open debate and if they wish to determine the death penalty's future in Ohio we encourage them to put it to a vote of the people not abolish it through the back door using House Bill 130 -, six and Senate At this time, I wanna introduce Carol O 'Brien. The chief Council from Attorney General Dave Yost Carol. Thank you. Good My name is Carol O 'Brien I'm Deputy Attorney General for Law Enforcement and Chief Council for Ohio Attorney General Davio's. I am here today on his behalf. He is in Washington DC dealing with other matters but would be here if he could have been and I promise you that everyone will hear more from Dave on these bills when he comes back to Ohio AIG is joining the prosecutors in their opposition to House Bill 130. The death penalty is not a decision that anyone invokes lightly None of these prosecutors standing up here would look at a case and say Oh let's just do the death penalty It's something that is rightfully decided by the judicial system and juries the current standard for pleading not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetence Sufficiently protects those who are not competent to stand trial while allowing protections prosecutors and juries to hold those who committed heinous acts accountable family members of victims deserve Justice they deserve clarity And they deserve the certainty rather than an ever-changing standard and exhausting litigation Reopening past convictions to litigate a mental state from years or even decades earlier after the fact is technically impractical and needlessly painful for the families of victims Attorney General Yost is ex extremely concerned about what this bill will do to the victims and he agrees in the statements and stands with the prosecutors of the State of Ohio Thank you I'm kinda like a County prosecutor Michael O 'Malley Kahagas account. He has currently has 20 individuals on death row in Ohio That's one in seven individuals from our state comes from Hagar County This bill if passed, will put all of those individuals in play to be removed from a death row. If we look at our most heinous murder and kayak a County Anthony Sowell who Women 11 innocent women in the city of Cleveland this bill will take him off death row It's not what the citizens of this County wants if not what the citizens of Cleveland want since I became Kagan County Prosecutor three years ago we presented five cases to the citizens of this County for capital charges for those individuals were convicted in May Several of them were quick convicted and placed on death row because of the overwhelming guilt the heinous ornaments of their crimes were quickly reviewed by a jury of their citizens who debated amongst themselves and came to the conclusion that the death penalty was the appropriate measure I just say to the people of Kenya, Ma County I say to the individuals who are sponsoring these bills Talk to your constituents I know the feeling of chaos County is very strong We selectively We have roughly a hundred and 70 murders a year in Chicago County only two or three individuals or even put forth for capital charges We do a very good job of screening individuals for any type of mitigating evidence that would remove them from cat the capital arena I just wanna say that this will have the effect again of placing all of those individuals who citizens of this country placed on death row of removing them Anthony Sowell who is diagnosed with a major Depressive disorder but knew right from wrong when he killed those 11 women Well, I will join and suggested this news conference to communicate to the public exactly what's going on in Columbus and connection with this bill because if if it does pass it's been my view and I testified in connection with it that it's a functional repeal of the Ohio death penalty and if that's the case put it up upper down. Vote in the general Assembly in the House and in the Senate and let our Tips decide that let's not functionally repeal it through passing legislation that pretty much puts everybody on death row back in play hit a reset button where they can go back start over again and claim that at the time of the offense they suffered from the mental kind of defects that would permit going forward under this bill an exonerating them from the capital sentence that they deserved in a jury and judge and many judges on appeal have appealed over the years and for that I him against the bill and them in favor of what we're trying to do here today and make sure the public understands that this bill under the guys of preventing execution is serious manly individuals is really an effort to repeal the death penalty here in Ohio Anyone else want to speak any questions, ladies and gentlemen I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm David Warren County Prosecutor Warren County for those of you in this part of the state is between Montgomery County in Hamilton County Source Suburban County in Southwest Ohio over the past four or five years I've personally tried to capital cases. I have two capital cases currently pending and also have one inmate who is scheduled for execution in December But the thing that I would like to to discuss today actually relates to a defendant who was not able to get the death penalty defended by the name of Casey Paige for those of you who may have heard of Casey Pig or those of you who have not Casey Pierce was convicted of a murder offense in Ross County and was incarcerated in one of our prisons and Warren County where he proceeded to kill an inmate that he has been incarcerated with for just a matter of days on his way Out of his cell after having killed this inmate he commented to the prison investigator how many people do I have to kill to be considered to be a serial killer obviously investigator didn't respond to that comment But mister Pig is based upon some intellectual disability or supposed intellectual disability fell below the threshold of where he was eligible to receive the death penalty he was subsequently pulled out as a result to life without parole and on a bus ORC bus trip from our County to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility He proceeds to kill another inmate on that bus there after a while at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility he shamed a corrections officer dozens of times requiring the corrections officer to be airlifted and suffer some serious injuries that that corrections officer still deals with the consequences of to this day and so my concern with respect to legislation like this is the same concern I have with her To the legislation making on the court rulings making mister pigeon eligible for the death penalty that being when we take out of the analysis whether this person understands the wrongness of their conduct or not and we put in some type of bright line artificial Do they have this diagnosis or that diagnosis or this level IQ we take out of the jury and the judge and the Ohio Supreme Court hands frankly the real common sense analysis This person understand what they do what they were doing and I would argue that an individual such as Casey Paige who clearly was able to execute two other inmates while incarcerated and even after that I had to wear with all to acquire and or make a shank and Shank a corrections officer again while incarcerated demonstrates that we need to go back to this analysis and keep this analysis that is currently in place of of N G R I does this person suffer from a physical or mental impairment that causes them to not be able Appreciate the wrongful mess of their of their conduct and and my concern with legislation like this is that we are going to create inside our prison system with these individuals that prosecutor O 'Malley has referred to earlier an entire new category of Casey Pigeon who essentially have a free car to do whatever they want while they're in prison and faced zero consequences as a result So that is one of the reasons why I would join my fellow prosecutors and the Office in opposing this dangerous legislation that is being floated and subsequently gonna be voted on by our Legislature Thank you question for go ahead sir You're getting good afternoon My name is George Wallace I'm Allen County prosecutor Allen County If you don't know is at the crossroads of I 70 - five in US 30 on the other side of the state I've prosecuted. I've been a prosecutor for 30 some years and in Prosecuted six death penalty cases where a smaller County about a hundred and 10 population We average about six murders a year for our per capita that's pretty high that rivals and exceeds some of the bigger cities Let me bring it home with this and that's the victims just this past week I have a an inmate that scheduled to be executed within the next six weeks Cleveland Jackson and just this week and planning for a clemency hearing that's coming up here in 10 days 11 days the I met Victims the mother and grandmother of one of the deceased victims and I had a conference with the father of the deceased three -year-old child Cleveland Jackson and his half brother planned a robbery and when they got to the place the residence where this was supposed to take place there happened to be a family meeting, not deter. They lined up all the family members in a kitchen that was approximately a quarter of the size of this room. They lined the people up against the Wall they started at either Not the people until they run out of ammunition The last person to be shot was Jayla Grant She was three years old. She has been in the arms of her father, James while James Grant is pleading for the life of his little girl saying please don't shoot my little girl Take me Please don't shoot my little girl These two individuals that were involved in this They shot the little girl in the head and killed her The and we're meeting with the family and I explained to him what was going on in Ohio with the death penalty not only are they subject to repeated appeals where the wounds are torn open once again and every time there's an execution scheduled They're called back and said you know what it's been pushed back again but this time I told him that there were some legislation pending which they've heard about and their question was why why are they doing this Why aren't they And the only answer I could give them is quite frankly because some of the people and Legislature want to have a legacy This is supposed to be their legacy having gotten rid of the death penalty Essentially the things they are doing now has been said again and again effectively abolishes the death penalty in Ohio and it takes out of the hands of jurors to decision because a judge will be making a decision whether or not under these circumstances, someone is eligible The jurist should be in the best position to know whether or not the death penalty should be imposed The jurors in the case heard the case they saw the pictures they heard the witnesses not legislators in Columbus This is an abomination of the system and to do this is is lacks feeling for the victims and as been said before none of the people that are proponents of this I've never tried a case of this Kind so we're opposed to this and just on behalf of victims Thank you for Brian Secure in Columbus I apologize broad stroke but there are a lot of legislators in power that are friendly to the prosecutors in in the ideology behind many of them Have been supportive of of this maybe with the exception of a former changed as my own health Why is it so hard to get through them Why are they not listening You make a case here Why are they not paying attention Well I think a few comments I'd make is this bill was introduced last session and they did listen to us and the bill was heading towards the floor of the House in the lame duck session and it was I think efforts by these another prosecutors that convinced the general Assembly to not go forward with it. The bill was Introduce both in the House and the Senate as you know and I think that there's probably a couple of factors that enter into it I think that you have some strong personalities behind in support of the bill and I think that helps others who may agree with us but don't wanna get into a fist fight opposing it that perhaps can slow it down and I think as this Expressed recently I think there's a frustration not only by him and other members of the general Assembly but by us that was somewhat alluded to before with 20 years of post conviction litigation to before you can carry out the sentence What are you accomplishing Secondly the high cost. you have the federal public defender in Columbus that shouldn't have a dog in this fight that handles these kinda cases. You're high public defender. They're both those offices literally Time on some of these issues and I think it from some of the pollen policymaker standpoint I kinda weighing things out and said well you know you know Indiana this war of attrition you know maybe we have lost and so they're willing to let this kind of legislation go forward and if that's the case you know as I mentioned before fine put it straight up upper down vote whether it's based on cost whether it's based on unavailability of drugs whether it's based on other fact the fair way to do it is just to say okay let's see Indiana the general Assembly let's have an up-or-down vote rather than trying to proceed on a bill like this that functionally accomplishes the same thing So at least that's my thoughts on it and I don't know if who is our executive director and is at least over the Legislature daily where I only go over there because I'm in Columbus on key issues I don't know if Luke has it come in Yeah Add to that that I think Ron is exactly right that I think you have two key people in the Legislature representative Bill sites from the Cincinnati area and Senator John Eklund from Lake County Chardon who support the bill and who are driving who are driving the legislation and you know the bill is currently pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee which is chaired by Senator John Ecklund So I think that it's tough to overcome when the two people the majority floor leader in the House and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee support the bill and people look to them Their opinion about criminal Justice legislation Look on page I'm just one of this bill there's two looks like there's two prongs defines a person as someone who has the disorder And also at the time of the alleged aggravated person's charge conditioner condition didn't rise to the level of nevertheless compared the person's capacity to exercise rational government relation to the person's conduct with respect I would following conforming the person's conduct to the requirements of law appreciating the nature consequences were wrong person's car and then it goes on into further So I think I'm a little confused cuz I thought earlier he said that it was not That wasn't Can you clarify with that I can we operate under the fried test which is fully competent and understand what you did or you're not. There's no diminished capacity. Some States have diminished capacity these diminished capacity laws where depending on you know it's not an either or it's it's kind of a sliding scale in this particular case though the difference is this that the things that you read off They're nowhere O R C the conditions They are defined in the DSM five which is you know the diagnostic and Statistical manual used by psychiatrists psychiatrist and psychologist So what you are doing in effect is you're putting into the into the into the hands of the psychiatric Association. Those people that produce the DSM five to define what makes people For the death penalty you see what I'm saying because at the end of the day it's not defined in the law It's defined elsewhere and the people that define that elsewhere then get to decide you know what exactly that the disorders you read You know what are the elements of those who decides what the elements of those are not the Legislature not the citizens not the judges It's going to be the people that produce the DSM five and whether or not it's significantly impaired person The other thing that's something that would have been addressed as well right now those things are brought up in the penalty face and those things are decided by a jury of 12 and under this scheme this would be handled in much of the same way that Atkins has handled and that has to do with whether people are Mr D D or D as we call them under a certain threshold of IQ so and the judge gets to design so Indiana this case under this circumstance that case never makes it to a jury on the issue of death I mean under this bill a judge decides upfront It's taken out of the hands of the jury at that point and you know With all with all due respect to the psychologist and psychiatrist I bet you for every one of the hundred and 30 - eight people on Death row, you'll find some psychologist psychiatrist willing to say that that the defendant fits into one of You know what if I might just follow up and say say something all of those disorders are things that can be presented at the mitigation phase of a capital case. You have a trial on guilt or innocence Then you have a mitigation phase where they consider the aggravating circumstances and the mitigating facts and every capital case. I've tried one or more of those diagnosis are presented to the jury and said I tried a case last month That's get so effective disorder was one of the things bipolar disorder was another thing that was presented to the jury That said even though he's not guilty by reason of insanity, he didn't meet that standard He has these mental health issues and that is a reason why it provides mitigation against the death penalty jury went back and said no, it doesn't and what this would do would be reset it and allow people currently on death row and going forward another bite at the Apple where it's not the jury to hear it So you know the law as written shouldn't Apply to anybody that didn't have the opportunity to present it in the first place I guess is the same as they go back to the judge and the judge would just hear I think I think Atkins is up I'm sorry up front Okay the concert is upfront and it has to do with more or less I Q right but when when people under when they weren't Would you be the same thing like that Well that's what they're saying but it wouldn't be and you know why Because under Atkins it is simply a numerical value Now there can be some argument about when the test came out and when it was administered and those things I get that but at the end of the day Adkins is a fairly bright line with respect to IQ Nothing like that exists in this case Nothing like that I mean I wonder and quite frankly when I testified in Columbus on this how many of the people that are proponents of this at the state I've actually read the DSM I'm have you actually read to see what the elements are What constitutes these kinds of illnesses and the answer was no Cautions and it's very body that it should not be used for friendly purposes in the preamble right Absolutely Thank you welcome anything else for the correct standard with 19 news now as we conclude this very interesting to hear these are individuals some of the top prosecutors around the state even the Ohio Attorney general even though he wasn't there, he sent his deputy in his place to speak out of against these bills really it sounds like because there is so much to be interpreted here when you simply Bill that says this is that someone is in eligible for a sentence of death due to serious mental illness You heard one of the prosecutors say well Indiana every death penalty case. You're gonna be able to find some cycle or psychiatrist to say well this person was suffering from X at the time I think we can all agree Anyone who thinks murder is the answer and has the where with all the commit murder is dealing with some sort of diminished mental capacity So should that effectively do away with the death penalty in the entire state Is it up to the Legislature or should it be up to the voters your opinions have been very strong on social media on whether or not you believe the death penalty should be should remain here in the state of Ohio but as you heard from the prosecutors this bill in both the House and the Senate are chugging along and are picking up speed when the prosecutors would like this off the table altogether because from their interpretation, it would effectively take the death penalty out of the state of Ohio All together it isn't used that often I can say from experience covering court hearing County very few crimes actually get to that capital punishment status the top of the heat Michael Malley, the Kiowa County prosecutor brought up the case of Anthony Soul and the reason that that is important is because if this bill were to pass it not only is talking about any death penalty case going forward in the future but all of the In the past anybody sitting on death row right now would be eligible for a new trial and if you can imagine that a whole brand new trial for Anthony Sul and his 11 victims and their family members having to go through this because he was at one point diagnosed with as the prosecutor said a major depression that he was diagnosed with major depression at some point is that enough and what interprets when you look at major depression whether or not you can German right from wrong that is really sort of the hinge when they start talking about a not guilty by reason of insanity or when an inmate or a suspect has a competency hearing and we had one just a few weeks ago here in Northeast Ohio a man who's being looked at for a rape case and the possible murder of his stepdaughter He has been found mentally incompetent in another County. They brought him here Northeast Ohio again agreed that he was found mentally incompetent that he has diminished capacity so his case doesn't didn't go forward because of that so the prosecutors are trying to say there's already matters in place. There's already competency hearings. There's already a chance for the jury at the end of a hearing to say well they were found guilty but did you know he had he or she had this mental capacity or had this depressed Or had this and a jury could take that into consideration as to whether or not they should be put to death giving those mitigating factors. You heard him talk about mitigating factors. The side factors that may have caused that crime very interesting to watch this debate as it moves forward, we're going to wrap this up I believe I'm hearing that we have other breaking news that there is a verdict in in the two Hogan County Correctional officers Ah I've been on trial and jury deliberations I have been ongoing over the last three days about their conduct and the possible beating the alleged beating of an inmate and the failure to get that inmate medical attention for four hours The jury has reached a verdict. Do we have a time we're looking at 315 is when that verdict is going to come in So we're gonna jump off air here Jump off our digital platforms We're gonna reset make sure Don't miss the verdict coming in for the Hogan County Correctional officers The two officers facing charges in the beating of an inmate that will be coming up at 315 I'm Danny Rose with 19 News Now we'll see you in just a few minutes 19 news first fair everywhere