Byrd

        Ohio courts are imposing fewer death sentences than at any time in the past decade, with the state total down 80 percent since 1998.

        The reason for the decline is a 1996 law that allows judges in capital murder trials to sen tence convicted killers to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

        Before the law, a death sentence was the only punishment that guaranteed the defendant would never be freed on parole.

        Now, judges and juries have another option. But that option was not available when most of the 202 inmates on Ohio's death row were sentenced for murder.

        It was not available at the trial for John Byrd Jr., the former Northside man who is scheduled to die in the electric chair Wednesday for stabbing to death a convenience store clerk in 1983.

        Prosecutors say Mr. Byrd's crime was so brutal that he would have been sentenced to death even if a sentence of life without parole had been an option at his trial.

        But prosecutors acknowledge the new sentence has become a popular alternative to the death penalty.

        At least three Hamilton County murder cases in the past year began with death penalty charges and ended with a sentence of life without parole.

        The county, the state leader in death penalty cases, has sent only one man to death row since 1999.

        “It's obviously had an impact,” said Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen.

        The new sentence appeals to judges and juries because it gives them a less drastic way to ensure that the defendant will never go free.

        It also gives prosecutors and defense lawyers another option when negotiating plea bargains before a trial begins.

        Either way, the result is the same: fewer cases end with a death sentence.

        “Life without parole has had

        a huge impact,” said Greg Meyers, chief counsel of the death penalty division at the Ohio Public Defender's office. “It gives judges and juries the sense that they have a valid, powerful alternative to sending someone to death row.”

        Many states, from Indiana to Florida, have adopted life without parole laws in the past decade. And like Ohio, many have seen a decline in the number of death sentences.

        “It's not necessarily intended to lessen the use of the death penalty,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. “But that may be the effect it has had.”
       

Wide support
               Life without parole is popular because it appeals to both supporters and opponents of the death penalty.

        Law enforcement likes it because it guarantees convicted killers will never get out of prison. Defense lawyers like it because it spares their clients from death row.

        And the families of victims like it because it imposes a severe sentence while avoiding the lengthy and often traumatic appeals that go along with a death sentence.

        “It's an attractive option for families,” Mr. Allen said. “It gives assurances that this person will never see the light of day again.”

        Ohio legislators made life without parole an option in 1996 in an effort to ensure that defendants who avoided a death sentence would never get a parole hearing.

        But instead of enhancing the death penalty, the new sentence soon began to replace it.

        In 1998, 15 convicted killers, including four from Hamilton County, were sent to Ohio's death row. Last year, only three were sent to death row — and none were from Hamilton County.

        So far this year, two cases in Ohio ended with death sentences.

        Although the number of murder cases has declined slightly, state officials say the 80 percent drop in death sentences is due almost entirely to the new life without parole sentence.

        Juries recommend all sentences in capital cases, and judges cannot impose a death sentence unless the jury first approves it.

        Mr. Dieter, whose organization has been critical of the death penalty, said judges and juries may be wary of capital punishment after hearing about wrongful convictions and other recent controversies.

        He said life without parole allows them to impose a severe punishment without the worry and second-guessing that sometimes goes along with a death sentence.

        “It's a sort of death penalty by imprisonment,” Mr. Dieter said.
       

Plea bargains
               Many death penalty cases aren't even going to trial any more.

        Instead, they end with a pre-trial plea bargain that gives the offender a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea.

        Plea bargains used to be rare in capital cases because prosecutors and families feared that anything less than a death sentence would not keep the offender in prison.

        But now pre-trial deals are much more common.

        “It has resulted in the resolution of many cases that otherwise, almost certainly, would have ended with a death sentence,” Mr. Meyers said.

        In a recent Hamilton County case, Lance Love was charged with strangling James Osterbrock in the basement of his Liberty Hill home.

        Mr. Osterbrock's family told prosecutors they wanted to resolve the case without a trial to “avoid reliving the horror of the events surrounding Jim's murder.” Mr. Love was willing to plead guilty to save his life.

        Mr. Allen said Mr. Byrd's case is a good example of how much pain a trial and a long appeals process can inflict on a victim's family.

        Mr. Byrd's victim, Monte Tewksbury, was stabbed to death 18 years ago. But his widow, Sharon Tewksbury, is still waiting for the case to end.

        “Some families look at the plight of Sharon Tewksbury and they see what she's been through,” Mr. Allen said. “They don't want to go through that.”
       

"A compromise'
               Mrs. Tewksbury said she might have agreed to a plea deal in 1983 if life without parole had been an option. But she said she probably would have regretted it later.

        She said Mr. Byrd has made so many threats over the years that a death sentence is the only way she can be sure he won't find a way to harm her family.

        After one threatening letter, Mrs. Tewksbury said, she drove her youngest child the two blocks to a school bus stop every day for a year.

        “I don't want to go through life looking over my shoulder,” she said. “It's not going to make me feel good knowing he's executed. I just want this part of my life to be over.”

        But after 18 years of waiting, Mrs. Tewksbury said she understands why many would see life without parole as the best choice.

        Mr. Allen acknowledges the appeal of life without parole but doubts it will ever fully replace the death penalty. Some cases, he said, “cry out” for capital punishment.

        Mr. Dieter, however, thinks life without parole may succeed in ending capital punishment where years of political and moral arguments have failed.

        “It may be that it's not a moral movement that ends the death penalty,” he said. “But a compromise that everyone can live with.”

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