Death penalty abolitionists in Ohio and Tennessee are hard at work trying to prevent the executions of Death Row inmates in those states.
More than 500 faith leaders signed a May 4 letter to the Ohio General Assembly pleading with lawmakers to strike down the state’s capital punishment system altogether.
“Now is the time for Ohio to rid itself of its outdated and immoral death penalty. As people who are motivated by faith and sparked by profound love for the common good, we are calling on you to endorse the bipartisan, multi-faith effort to abolish the death penalty in Ohio,” the letter urges.
“As people of faith, we are committed to policies rooted in justice and grounded in the promise of redemption.”
Signees cover the spectrum of religions across the state. Leaders from Catholic, Congregational, Episcopal, Methodist and Presbyterian congregations and organizations were joined by Jewish and Muslim groups.
“As people of faith, we are committed to policies rooted in justice and grounded in the promise of redemption,” they wrote. “While we come from varied backgrounds and political stances, we stand together against state sanctioned murder. Instead, we are motivated by the restorative power of empathy and investments in transformation.”
Ohio’s active abolitionist movement is campaigning to see their state join the 23 others without capital punishment laws, including Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Virginia and Washington that have abolished the practice since 2000.
And the movement has had some successes. Ohio is one of four states with executive holds on executions, with the last execution in 2018. And Gov. Mike DeWine last year announced no executions will be held during his term in office, which ends in January.
In their letter, religious leaders cited the financial and moral brokenness of capital punishment and its proven failure to prevent crime or to bring healing to victims’ families: “We hold deep care and respect for victims and co-victims of crime, and we most certainly are not opposed to accountability for rightfully convicted persons. However, we believe that the death penalty serves no moral purpose. Instead, it is a hollow instrument of death that offers no redemption, no closure and no transformation for anyone involved.”
Tony Carruthers
In Tennessee, meanwhile, death penalty opponents are hustling to prevent Tony Carruthers’ execution scheduled for May 21.
The Faith Leaders of Color Coalition, Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and the American Civil Liberties Union are among the voices warning Carruthers is likely innocent in the 1994 kidnapping and killing of Marcellos Anderson, Marcellos’ mother Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker in 1994 .
“Tony was convicted without physical evidence, based on testimony from informants, including one paid by the state who later recanted his statement,” the ACLU said in a petition with more than 36,000 signatures.
“There are several fingerprints and DNA from the scene that don’t match Tony, but they were never compared to a suspect identified by his co-defendant,” ACLU attorneys explained.
The civil rights group filed an emergency motion with the Tennessee Supreme Court April 9 seeking to have the DNA testing conducted. While the court denied the request, Gov. Bill Lee has been asked to grant clemency in the case.
Co-defendant James Montgomery’s death sentence was overturned and reduced to 20 years in prison. At that point, Montgomery signed a statement affirming Carruthers had not been involved in the murders, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
In addition, the trial was deeply flawed because a judge forced Carruthers to represent himself due to his repeated firing of legal counsel, ACLU attorneys added. “If Tennessee executes Tony, he will be the first person in nearly a century to be executed after being forced to represent himself at trial.”
Faith leaders were among those who pleaded for Carruthers’ life during a May 6 press conference in Memphis.
“Tony Carruthers is a child of God,” said Lillian Lammers, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Memphis and a board member with the Tennessee Innocence Project. “If Tennessee insists on being a state that utilizes the death penalty, we should only do so while feeling a great burden, with heavy hearts and with complete and total confidence that the person whose life we are taking is guilty.”
Micah Greenstein
Rabbi Micah Greenstein of Temple Israel in Memphis pleaded with the state to simply conduct the DNA testing to ensure an innocent man is not executed.
“Executing Tony Carruthers publicly without physical evidence should infuriate all Tennesseans, regardless of their view on the death penalty,” he said. “Denying untested DNA evidence that could prove his innocence is a betrayal of due process.”
Joia Erin Thornton
Joia Thornton, national director of the Faith Leaders of Color Coalition, warned capital punishment has proved to be deeply flawed when it comes to executing innocent people.
“More than 200 people in this country have been exonerated from Death Row because of official misconduct, untested or mishandled evidence, false confessions, racial bias and unreliable witness testimony,” she said. “Tony Carruthers’ case includes many of the same concerns. For more than 30 years, he has remained on Death Row while serious inconsistencies have gone unaddressed.”
Ten prisoners have been executed in the U.S. so far in 2026. Florida leads with six, followed by three in Texas and one in Oklahoma.