The Death Penalty in Ohio

Ohio has the death penalty for aggravated murder when at least one listed aggravating circumstance is charged in the indictment and proved beyond a reasonable doubt, such as murder for hire, killing a law enforcement officer, killing a witness, killing a child under 13, killing two or more people, or murder during a kidnapping, rape, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, aggravated arson or terrorism. It is not available for an offender under 18 at the time of the offense or one found to have had a serious mental illness at the time. The statute sets the method as lethal injection of a drug or combination of drugs; if lethal injection is held unconstitutional, another method later prescribed by law is used. The Ohio Attorney General's 2025 Capital Crimes Annual Report states that execution dates have been repeatedly postponed by the Governor's reprieves, mainly because of difficulty obtaining lethal-injection drugs (for example, three execution dates were moved to 2029 in January 2026).