WASHINGTON, DC – In an opinion article published by Newsweek, Gary Mohr, the former director of Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC), called on President Biden to commute “the sentences of all those on federal death row to life imprisonment without possibility of parole” before Biden leaves office.
Mohr said his appeal to Biden is based primarily on his experiences as ODRC’s director; during his tenure, he oversaw 15 executions.
In the Op-Ed, Mohr asserts executions have left him and his colleagues with “deep psychic wounds.”
“(Executions) took a heavy toll on my staff, even those who were less directly involved in the process. Correctional colleagues from other states have shared their own stories about experiencing long-term post-traumatic symptoms from participation in or proximity to executions,” wrote Mohr.
Mohr also expressed doubt in his Newsweek piece that the death penalty brings “real peace” to victims’ families, even those who believed that execution amounts to justice.
“Fifteen times, I met with victims’ family members who chose to witness the execution. Those meetings were among the hardest in my long career…I saw their faces as they left the viewing room, and I grew to doubt that continuing the cycle of violence and death brought any real peace,” Mohr continues.
Beyond psychological trauma and the deliverance of justice, Mohr also argues in the Newsweek Op-Ed that the death penalty “drains … monetary and human (resources)” from already-struggling correctional systems without meaningfully addressing safety, both within and outside of prisons.
“Fifteen times, I was tasked with finding the lethal chemicals to carry out the death penalty … (which) led me to some of the internet’s most unscrupulous corners, and required me to expend vast resources…there is no justification for continuing a policy that drains resources without improving public or prison safety,” added Mohr.
Ultimately Mohr maintains the death penalty is “antithetical” to the mission of corrections departments: “growth, transformation, and redemption” for the incarcerated.
With nearly half a century of experience in the correctional system, Mohr argues in his Newsweek opinion there is nothing that distinguishes those on death row from those serving life — save for class, race, mental ability, or bad luck in the justice system.
Mohr wrote, “If anything sets the condemned apart, it is that they are likely to be poorer, darker skinned, or more mentally impaired; that they were assigned a worse trial lawyer; or that they committed a crime in a county with a more ambitious prosecutor.
“Death row prisoners are not uniquely dangerous within the prison community, and I’ve seen no evidence that having the death penalty deters crime at any level.”
Mohr said in Newsweek the onus was on President Biden, charging Biden could address these problems, at least within the federal system, by “commuting all federal death sentences to life.” This would, in Mohr’s view, bring justice to the incarcerated, the victims’ families, and federal employees.
“By using his clemency power to end federal death sentences, President Biden can grant mercy not only to the men on federal death row, but in a larger sense, to the corrections community and to all of us,” Mohr concludes.
