Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said on Monday, November 9, that he is looking at commuting some death-penalty sentences before he leaves office in January — but he ruled out a blanket commutation for all 106 people on Ohio's death row, saying every case will be decided on its own facts. “I've made the decision that I'm not going to do a blanket reduction as California did,” DeWine said in an interview. “We will look at every single case and make decisions based on that case.”
Source: Columbus Dispatch via Corrections1, Nov. 9, 2026
The process is already moving. The Ohio Parole Board has notified county prosecutors that it will review the cases of at least five people on death row in the coming weeks, and DeWine, a Republican who announced his personal opposition to the death penalty in June, has asked the board to review and make recommendations on death-sentence cases in at least 10 counties, including Cuyahoga, Summit and Lorain counties in Northeast Ohio. DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said the governor routinely considers clemency but acknowledged “there's a higher volume now” as DeWine approaches the end of his final term.
The December hearings
The Parole Board has scheduled clemency hearings in December for Denny Obermiller on December 1 and Melvin Bonnell on December 7 — both Cuyahoga County cases, according to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office spokeswoman Lexi Bauer — and for Freddie McNeill and Stanley Jalowiec, according to prosecutors' offices in Cuyahoga and Lorain counties. The board will also interview Victoria Drain in mid-December, Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell said. At the same time, the board abandoned plans to look at three death-penalty cases in Hamilton County, according to records provided by that prosecutor's office. A spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction did not immediately respond to a request for information.
Source: Columbus Dispatch via Corrections1, Nov. 9, 2026
Under Ohio law, the governor cannot commute a death sentence until he receives a recommendation from the Ohio Parole Board. That is why the December hearings matter: no board recommendation, no commutation — whatever DeWine decides about an individual case.
Prosecutors push back; civil-liberties groups urge him on
Supporters of capital punishment, including the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, have pushed DeWine not to commute sentences, and the association's executive director, Lou Tobin, questioned the speed of the end-of-term process. “The commutation process typically takes months and provides prosecutors, the victim's family, and the public ample opportunity to express their concerns,” Tobin said. “Doing this in the short amount of time before he leaves office raises serious questions about whether he is honoring the state's obligations to the victims of these crimes and to the public.”
Source: Columbus Dispatch and Cleveland.com, Nov. 10, 2026, via Death Penalty News
On the other side, people on death row have lobbied DeWine for clemency and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has urged him to commute the sentences of those who have exhausted their judicial appeals. “Executing an innocent person is not a risk we should be willing to take, and we hope Gov. DeWine is seriously weighing that risk,” the ACLU of Ohio said in a statement on November 9. “Clemency is an act of justice.”
A governor who changed his mind
DeWine's move caps a long public shift. Months ago he called on state lawmakers to end the death penalty, arguing the system is slow, expensive and does not deter crime, and in June he announced his personal opposition to capital punishment, saying the moral justification he once had for supporting it no longer exists. Ohio has not executed anyone since 2018, before he took office. In nearly eight years as governor he has taken only one person off death row: Gregory Lott, whose sentence he commuted in May to life in prison without parole. Lott, now 64, had spent four decades on death row for the 1986 killing of an 82-year-old East Cleveland man during a home burglary; the Parole Board had voted 6-2 for clemency in 2020 after experts found him intellectually disabled to a degree that would bar his execution under current law, the victim's family opposed the death penalty, and Cuyahoga County prosecutors withdrew their opposition in 2022.
Source: The Marshall Project reporting, via Fact in Face, June 24, 2026
One recommendation is already waiting on his desk. The Parole Board on August 25 recommended commuting the death sentence of Tyrone Noling — who has spent three decades on death row and maintains his innocence in the 1990 murders of an elderly Portage County couple — to life in prison with parole eligibility beginning January 1, 2029. DeWine has not yet acted on that recommendation.
Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Aug. 26, 2026
The California contrast, and what happens next
DeWine drew his line against the example of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who also leaves office in January and recently commuted the sentences of 548 people on California's death row in a single blanket action. Ohio's governor said he will not do that. He also said he did not know offhand how many cases he has asked the board to review, has not decided how many sentences he will ultimately commute, and has not said when he will announce his decisions. The December hearings — starting with Obermiller on December 1 and Bonnell on December 7 — will produce the recommendations DeWine needs, and any commutations must be issued before his term ends in January, when governor-elect Amy Acton takes office.