State Archives Series 7089 Office of the Governor. Legal Division Death penalty case files

              State Archives Series 7089
Office of the Governor. Legal Division
Death Penalty Files, 1981- 2006
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OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
State Archives Record Series
State Archives Series 7089
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR. LEGAL DIVISION.
DEATH PENALTY FILES, 1981- 2006
OVERVIEW OF THE SERIES
Series Number:
State Archvies Series 7089
Creating Agency:
Office of the Governor
Department/ Division:
Legal Division
Series Title:
Death Penalty Case Files
Dates of Series:
19812006
Media:
Paper
Quantity:
15 cubic foot
Location:
58,085- 58,092; 58,094- 58,100
SCOPE AND CONTENTS OF THE SERIES
This series consists of the death penalty files kept by the Legal Division of the office of Governor Bob Taft as part of the governor’s statutory responsibilities to grant or deny clemency or commutation for death row prisoners. Files include the inmate’s clemency petition, the report of clemency hearing by the Adult Parole Authority and Department of Rehabilitation and Correction files used for the hearing, information prepared by the County Prosecutor and/ or the Attorney General for the clemency hearing, trial transcripts, memoranda written by the Legal Division, Adult Parole Authority ( APA), and Attorney General’s Office; letters written in regard to the case; and the action taken by the governor.
The series includes case files of twenty inmates who were executed, one who was granted clemency, and three who remained on death row at the end of Governor Taft’s administration. Case files of Jay D. Scott, the first Ohio prisoner to be involuntarily executed since 1963, includes several folders of international and United States letters sent to the governor in protest of the death penalty. Affidavits describing the process of performing lethal injections in Ohio are included with a 2003 complaint filed by inmates