COLUMBUS, Ohio AP – As a young state senator 30 years ago, Paul Pfeifer helped write Ohio’s death penalty law. Today, as the senior member of the state Supreme Court, he’s trying to eliminate it.
It’s not uncommon for sitting judges to change their mind on the death penalty – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun famously said in 1994 he would no longer “tinker with the machinery of death” – but Pfeifer may be the only one to argue so ardently against a capital punishment law he himself created, and yet continue to rule on death penalty cases.
