With less than a year left in office, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is changing course on a policy he's defended and voted in favor of for decades: the death penalty.
DeWine announced on Tuesday that he thinks the state should abolish the death penalty.
He voted in favor of reinstating capital punishment when he was a state lawmaker in the 1980s and defended the practice as Ohio's attorney general.
Now, he said he did so because he thought it would serve as a deterrent, but he no longer believes that's the case, saying the moral justification he had in voting for the death penalty no longer exists.
"For the state to take a human life, there must, in my opinion, there must be evidence that in doing so it will help protect the public—that the threat of that action will deter someone from committing murder. For the reasons stated above, I do not believe that argument today can be successfully made," DeWine said.
DeWine said capital punishment convictions in Ohio are decreasing.
When someone is sentenced to death, it takes years, if not decades, before they are executed.
The governor called on the legislature to take action and abolish the death penalty.
